Today, a Wednesday, the same day that Ryerson Biergarten was sitting down with Tom McCabe, Larry was feeling deathly ill, as if, he told his mother, "Little bugs had got inside me and were scratching away at my insides, Mom."
It sounded to Mrs. Wilde like food poisoning. The day before, they'd gone to a picnic sponsored by the company where Mr. Wilde worked, and there were complaints all around that the macaroni salad was "slimy,”“greasy,”“sour tasting," and "alcoholic." And indeed a few of the people who ate it got nauseous several hours later.
"How much of that salad did you have yesterday, Larry?" Mrs. Wilde asked.
"None of it," he answered. "It tasted like shit."
She thought of telling him that "shit" was not a proper word for a sixteen-year-old to use, decided that maybe it was-considering the times-and told him to go up to bed. Maybe, she decided, when he got to feeling really sick he'd tell her the truth about why his hand was bandaged up, too-"Slammed it in the car door, Mom," just seemed too much like a lie, for some reason.
"Let me ask you something," Ryerson said to Tom McCabe.
"Shoot," McCabe said.
And Ryerson said, "What did you believe in as a kid, Tom?"
"Sorry?"
"It's not a trick question. I just want you to tell me what you believed in when you were a kid. You know-did you believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, gnomes under the bed?"
McCabe nodded. "Yes," he said.
"You believed in all those things?"
"Uh-huh. Especially the gnomes under the bed, except they weren't gnomes, they were little wrinkled, naked men who pulled at your skin all night-" He stopped and looked embarrassed. Ryerson read, momentarily, something very strange in him, something cockeyed and off key; it was, he knew, the same sort of strange, cockeyed, off-key thing that most people harbored deep within themselves. The only difference with McCabe was that it was closer to the surface. "You mean," Ryerson coaxed, "if you let something dangle over the bed, these little men-"
McCabe held his hand up, cut in, "No. You didn't have to let anything dangle over the bed. These little men just came out at night and sat on you and pulled at your skin."
Ryerson, needing some time to think about this, leaned over in the chair and picked up Creosote, who'd been sleeping contentedly for a quarter of an hour. The dog awoke with a start and immediately began grunting. Ryerson stroked the dog for a few moments, gaze lowered because he didn't want to look at McCabe. Then he said, looking at him at last, "And do you still believe in these little naked men, Tom?"
McCabe chuckled shortly. "That's a hell of a question to ask a chief of detectives, Rye."
"You're being evasive."
"You should be a detective."
"I am a detective. Sort of."
"Yes. I still believe in them."
"Thanks for your honesty."
"Around you, Rye, I'd be foolish to lie, isn't that right?"
Ryerson shrugged humbly. "I don't know. Maybe. Sometimes."
"And do you think I'm… childish, Rye, for believing in these little naked men?"
"Only if you let that belief interfere with your sleep, Tom."
He shook his head. "I don't. I've grown used to them. They're even a kind of comfort; I've slept alone for a long time, Rye." He grinned sadly. "If you follow me."
In Edgewater, Larry Wilde wanted desperately to puke but realized, in agony, that he wasn't going to. He got up, went to the top of the stairs, yelled down to his mother, "Mom? Mom? We got any of that-" He stopped to let a particularly dizzying wave of nausea pass over him, then continued, "Any of that stuff. That I-pak-ik."
She appeared at the bottom of the stairs, knitting in hand. "Ipecac, you mean, Larry?"
"Yeah." He put his hand on his stomach. "Yeah. That stuff. The stuff that makes you throw up. I need it bad, Mom."
"I'm sorry, son, but we used the last of it the day after New Year's."
"Shit!" Larry said, and went back to his room.
"But you don't believe in werewolves, do you?" Ryerson asked McCabe. "Or in vampires, or zombies, or demons-"
"I kind of believe in demons, Rye."
"Do you?"
"Well, yes. These little wrinkled, naked men are demons; I'd say they're demons-I guess they're the damned closest things to demons I've come in contact with."
"But you don't believe in zombies, vampires, or werewolves-the big three of the world of the supernatural; as far as you're concerned they're Saturday-matinee stuff, right?"
McCabe nodded. "Right."
"Your fascination is with little wrinkled naked men?"
"Well, I don't know if 'fascination' is the right word-"
"Your nighttime preoccupation, then."
"Yes. I guess so." He paused only a moment. "What about ghosts, Rye?"
"What about them?"
"You said vampires, werewolves, and zombies were the big three of the world of the supernatural. What about ghosts?"
Ryerson shook his head; he was aware that he was slowly assuming an air of superiority, and he didn't like it. "They're benign. They're not physical enough."
"For what?"
Ryerson scratched behind Creosote's ears, which caused the dog to make a noise that was disconcertingly close to a ragged purr because, as usual, he had his treasured soft plastic duck in his mouth. "For murder. In our hearts, I think most of us are murderers. I think we're very, very taken with the idea of death. And with power."
McCabe eyed him suspiciously; "You think my little wrinkled naked men have something to do with death?"
Ryerson grinned knowingly. "Maybe, Tom." He heard the clearly superior tone in his voice. He shook his head. "No, I'm sorry; yes, Tom. I think they do. I think they have to do with sex, and with death, and, damnit, this theory I'm trying to develop here for you is so damned slippery, every time I try to get hold of it, it slithers away." He had been leaning forward; now he leaned back, sighed, his eyes on the ceiling, hand draped over the top of Creosote's head, which he knew the dog enjoyed. "I saw her; I saw Lila-"
"Good Lord, you mean today-"
"Yes." He touched the side of his head. "Here. I saw her, and I felt such agony around her, as if she were being eaten alive from within-" He stopped, shook his head. "I don't know, Tom. I don't know." He was suddenly very weary. "Maybe it doesn't have to be vampires, or werewolves, or zombies at all. Maybe it can be anything. Maybe it can be tigers. Or hyenas. Maybe it can be Jack The Ripper, or Gengis Khan, or Charles Manson. I don't know. I'm sorry, Tom, but I'm stumped."
McCabe stood. "Drink?" he asked.
Ryerson said, "Tomato juice, okay?" He nodded at Creosote. And some water for him, if possible.”
“Sure."
Larry Wilde vomited at last. Not that it did him any good. The nausea returned seconds later with a vengeance, and, panic-stricken, he ran again to the top of the stairs; "Mom!" he yelled down. "Mom!" And he collapsed in a heap, his head dangling over the top stair.
Mrs. Wilde, her knitting still in hand, appeared at the bottom of the stairs moments later, saw her son, and ran up to him. She bent over and lifted his head.
"Larry?" she asked, confused, because what she saw there on her son's face wasn't Larry at all; it was something else, something hateful and murderous, something that was the very soul and spirit of evil. "Larry?" she said again, her voice trembling.
And it was Larry who answered, "Yes, mother?" But it was a Larry who had been in hiding for sixteen years; a Larry she had never known.
And then he began to change. The nose first, then the eyes, the cheeks, the forehead…