Then fifteen. I tried to talk to him and he told me to shut up. He kept rubbing his chest, only stopping long enough to take his cigarettes from his breast pocket.

“Oh, that’s a good idea,” I said. “That’ll help your heart a lot.”

“Put a sock in it.”

He stuck the bayonet in the gravel behind the garage and lit his cigarette with a battered Zippo. In the momentary flicker of flame, I saw sweat running down his cheeks, even though the night was chilly. His eyes seemed to have receded into their sockets, making his face look like a skull. He sucked in smoke, coughed it out. His thin body shook, but the gun remained steady.

Pointed at my chest. Overhead, the stars were out. It was now ten of eight. How far along had Ellery Queen been when Dunning arrived? Harry’s theme hadn’t said, but I was guessing not long. There was no school tomorrow, but Doris Dunning still wouldn’t want seven-year-old Ellen out much later than ten, even if she was with Tugga and Harry.

Five minutes of eight.

And suddenly an idea occurred to me. It had the clarity of undisputed truth, and I spoke while it was still bright.

“You chickenshit.”

“What?” He straightened as if he’d been goosed.

“You heard me.” I mimicked him. “‘Nobody messes with Frankie Dunning but me. He’s mine. ’ You’ve been telling yourself that for twenty years, haven’t you? And you haven’t messed with him yet.”

“I told you to shut up.”

“Hell, twenty-two! You didn’t mess with him when he went after Chaz Frati, either, did you?

You ran away like a little girl and got the football players.”

“There was six of em!”

“Sure, but Dunning’s been on his own plenty of times since, and you haven’t even put a banana peel down on the sidewalk and hoped he’d slip on it. You’re a chickenshit coward, Turcotte.

Hiding over here like a rabbit in a hole.”

“Shut up!”

“Telling yourself some bullshit about how seeing him in prison would be the best revenge, so you don’t have to face the fact—”

“Shut up!”

“—that you’re a nutless wonder who’s let his sister’s murderer walk around free for over twenty years—”

“I’m warning you!” He cocked the revolver’s hammer.

I thumped the middle of my chest. “Go on. Do it. Everybody’ll hear the shot, the police will come, Dunning’ll see the ruckus and turn right around, and you’ll be the one in Shawshank. I bet they got a mill there, too. You can work in it for a nickel an hour instead of a buck-twenty. Only you’ll like that, because you won’t have to try and explain to yourself why you just stood by all those years. If your sister was alive, she’d spit on y—” He thrust the gun forward, meaning to press the muzzle against my chest, and stumbled on his own damn bayonet. I batted the pistol aside with the back of my hand and it went off. The bullet must have gone into the ground less than an inch from my leg, because a little spray of stones struck my pants. I grabbed the gun and pointed it at him, ready to shoot if he made the slightest move to grab the fallen bayonet.

What he did was slump against the garage wall. Now both hands were plastered over the left side of his chest, and he was making a low gagging sound.

Somewhere not too far away—on Kossuth, not Wyemore—a man bellowed: “Fun’s fun, you kids, but one more cherry bomb and I’m calling the cops! A word to the wise!” I let out my breath. Turcotte was letting his out as well, but in hitching gasps. The gagging sounds continued as he slid down the side of the garage and sprawled on the gravel. I took the bayonet, considered putting it in my belt, and decided I’d only gash my leg with it when I pushed through the hedge: the past hard at work, trying to stop me. I hucked it into the dark yard instead, and heard a low clunk as it hit something. Maybe the side of the YOUR POOCH BELONGS HERE

doghouse.

“Ambulance,” Turcotte croaked. His eyes gleamed with what might have been tears. “Please, Amberson. Hurts bad.”

Ambulance. Good idea. And here’s something hilarious. I’d been in Derry—in 1958—for almost two months, but I still plunged my hand into my right front pants pocket, where I always kept my cell phone when I wasn’t wearing a sport coat. My fingers found nothing there but some change and the keys to the Sunliner.

“Sorry, Turcotte. You were born in the wrong era for instant rescue.”

“What?”

According to the Bulova, The New Adventures of Ellery Queen was now being telecast to a waiting America. “Tough it out,” I said, and shoved through the hedge, the hand not holding the gun raised to protect my eyes from the stiff, raking branches.

11

I tripped over the sandbox in the middle of the Dunning backyard, fell full length, and found myself face-to-face with a blank-eyed doll wearing a tiara and nothing else. The revolver flew out of my hand. I went searching for it on my hands and knees, thinking I would never find it; this was the obdurate past’s final trick. A small one, compared to raging stomach flu and Bill Turcotte, but a good one. Then, just as I spotted it lying at the edge of a trapezoidal length of light thrown by the kitchen window, I heard a car coming down Kossuth Street. It was moving far faster than any reasonable driver would have dared to travel on a street that was no doubt full of children wearing masks and carrying trick-or-treat bags. I knew who it was even before it screeched to a stop.

Inside 379, Doris Dunning was sitting on the couch with Troy while Ellen pranced around in her Indian princess costume, wild to get going. Troy had just told her that he would help eat the candy when she, Tugga, and Harry came back. Ellen was replying, “No, you won’t, dress up and get your own.” Everybody would laugh at that, even Harry, who was in the bathroom taking a last-minute whiz. Because Ellen was a real Lucille Ball who could make anybody laugh.

I snatched at the gun. It slipped through my sweat-slick fingers and landed in the grass again.

My shin was howling where I’d barked it on the side of the sandbox. On the other side of the house, a car door slammed and rapid footsteps rattled on concrete. I remember thinking, Bar the door, Mom, that’s not just your bad-tempered husband; that’s Derry itself coming up the walk.

I grabbed the gun, staggered upright, stumbled over my own stupid feet, almost went down again, found my balance, and ran for the back door. The cellar bulkhead was in my path. I detoured around it, convinced that if I put my weight on it, it would give way. The air itself seemed to have turned syrupy, as if it were also trying to slow me down.

Even if it kills me, I thought. Even if it kills me and Oswald goes through with it and millions die. Even then. Because this is now . This is them.