“Yes.”

“I mean it. Anything. I’m right down the hall.”

“I will.”

Hesitating, feeling there were other things he should do, he went out.

FIVE

He didn’t sleep at all, and the only thing now that kept him from calling Ben Mears was knowing that everyone at Eva’s would be in bed. The boardinghouse was filled with old men, and when the phone rang late at night, it meant that someone had died.

He lay restively, watching the luminous hands of his alarm clock move from eleven-thirty to twelve. The house was preternaturally silent—perhaps because his ears were consciously attuned to catch the slightest noise. The house was an old one and built solidly, and its settling groans had mostly ceased long before. There were no sounds but the clock and the faint passage of the wind outside. No cars passed on Taggart Stream Road late on week nights.

What you’re thinking is madness.

But step by step he had been forced backward toward belief. Of course, being a literary man, it had been the first thing that had come to mind when Jimmy Cody had thumbnailed Danny Glick’s case. He and Cody had laughed over it. Maybe this was his punishment for laughing.

Scratches? Those marks weren’t scratches. They were punctures.

One was taught that such things could not be; that things like Coleridge’s “Cristabel” or Bram Stoker’s evil fairy tale were only the warp and woof of fantasy. Of course monsters existed; they were the men with their fingers on the thermonuclear triggers in six countries, the hijackers, the mass murderers, the child molesters. But not this. One knows better. The mark of the devil on a woman’s breast is only a mole, the man who came back from the dead and stood at his wife’s door dressed in the cerements of the grave was only suffering from locomotor ataxia, the bogeyman who gibbers and capers in the corner of a child’s bedroom is only a heap of blankets. Some clergymen had proclaimed that even God, that venerable white warlock, was dead.

He was bled almost white.

No sound from up the hall. Matt thought: He is sleeping like the stones himself. Well, why not? Why had he invited Mike back to the house, if not for a good night’s sleep, uninterrupted by…by bad dreams? He got out of bed and turned on the lamp and went to the window. From here one could just see the rooftop of the Marsten House, frosted in moonlight.

I’m frightened.

But it was worse than that; he was dead scared. His mind ran over the old protections for an unmentionable disease: garlic, holy wafer and water, crucifix, rose, running water. He had none of the holy things. He was a nonpracticing Methodist, and privately thought that John Groggins was the asshole of the Western world.

The only religious object in the house was—

Softly yet clearly in the silent house the words came, spoken in Mike Ryerson’s voice, spoken in the dead accents of sleep:

“Yes. Come in.”

Matt’s breath stopped, then whistled out in a soundless scream. He felt faint with fear. His belly seemed to have turned to lead. His testicles had drawn up. What in God’s name had been invited into his house?

Stealthily, the sound of the hasp on the guest room window being turned back. Then the grind of wood against wood as the window was forced up.

He could go downstairs. Run, get the Bible from the dresser in the dining room. Run back up, jerk open the door to the guest room, hold the Bible high: In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, I command you to be gone—

But who was in there?

Call me in the night if you want anything.

But I can’t, Mike. I’m an old man. I’m afraid.

Night invaded his brain and made it a circus of terrifying images which danced in and out of the shadows. Clown-white faces, huge eyes, sharp teeth, forms that slipped from the shadows with long white hands that reached for…for…

A shuddering groan escaped him, and he put his hands over his face.

I can’t. I am afraid.

He could not have risen even if the brass knob on his own door had begun to turn. He was paralyzed with fear and wished crazily that he had never gone out to Dell’s that night.

I am afraid.

And in the awful heavy silence of the house, as he sat impotently on his bed with his face in his hands, he heard the high, sweet, evil laugh of a child—

—and then the sucking sounds.

Part Two

Call the roller of big cigars,

The muscular one, and bid him whip

In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.

Let the wenches dawdle in such dress

As they are used to wear, and let the boys

Bring flowers in last month’s newspapers.

Let be be finale of seem.

The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,

Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet

On which she embroidered three fantails once

And spread it so as to cover her face.

If her horny feet protrude, they come

To show how cold she is, and dumb.

Let the lamp affix its beam.

The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream.

W

ALLACE

S

TEVENS

This column has

A hole. Can you see

The Queen of the Dead?

G

EORGE

S

EFERIS

Chapter Eight

The knocking must have been going on for a long time, because it seemed to echo far down the avenues of sleep as he slowly struggled up to wakefulness. It was dark outside, but when he turned to grasp the clock and bring it to his face, he knocked it onto the floor. He felt disoriented and frightened.

“Who is it?” he called out.

“It’s Eva, Mr Mears. There’s a phone call for you.”

He got up, pulled on his pants, and opened the door bare-chested. Eva Miller was in a white terry-cloth robe, and her face was full of the slow vulnerability of a person still two-fifths asleep. They looked at each other nakedly, and he was thinking: Who’s sick? Who’s died?

“Long-distance?”

“No, it’s Matthew Burke.”

The knowledge did not relieve him as it should have done. “What time is it?”

“Just after four. Mr Burke sounds very upset.”

Ben went downstairs and picked the phone up. “This is Ben, Matt.”

Matt was breathing rapidly into the phone, the sound of his respiration coming in harsh little blurts. “Can you come, Ben? Right now?”

“Yes, all right. What’s the matter? Are you sick?”

“Not on the phone. Just come.”

“Ten minutes.”

“Ben?”

“Yes.”

“Have you got a crucifix? A St Christopher’s medallion? Anything like that?”

“Hell no. I’m—was—a Baptist.”

“All right. Come fast.”

Ben hung up and went back upstairs quickly. Eva was standing with one hand on the newel post, her face filled with worry and indecision—on one hand wanting to know, on the other, not wanting to mix in the tenant’s business.

“Is Mr Burke sick, Mr Mears?”

“He says not. He just asked me…say, you aren’t Catholic?”

“My husband was.”

“Do you have a crucifix or a rosary or a St Christopher’s medallion?”

“Well…my husband’s crucifix is in the bedroom…I could…”

“Yes, would you?”

She went up the hall, her furry slippers scuffing at the faded strip of carpet. Ben went into his room, pulled on yesterday’s shirt, and slipped his bare feet into a pair of loafers. When he came out again, Eva was standing by his door, holding the crucifix. It caught the light and threw back dim silver.