Something Wicked This Way Comes (7 page)

Out on the highway the last faint water-colours of the sun were gone beyond the hills and whatever they were chasing was so far ahead as to be only a swift-fleck now shown in lamplight, now set free, running, into dark.

    'Twenty-eight!' gasped Jim, 'Twenty-eight times!'

    'The merry-go-round, sure!' Will jerked his head. 'Twenty-eight times I counted, it went around back!'

    Up ahead the small shape stopped and looked back.

    Jim and Will ducked in by a tree and let it move on.

    'It', thought Will. Why do I think 'it'? He's a boy, he's a man. . .no. . .it is something that has changed, that's what it is.

    They reached and passed the city limits, and swiftly jogging, Will said, Jim, there must've been two people on that ride, Mr Cooger and this boy and - '

    'No. I never took my eyes off him!'

    They ran by the barber shop. Will saw but did not see a sign in the window. He read but did not read. He remembered, he forgot. He plunged on.

    'Hey! He's turned on Culpepper Street! Quick!'

    They rounded a corner.

    'He's gone!'

    The street lay long and empty in the lamplight.

    Leaves blew on the hopscotch-chalked sidewalks.

    'Will, Miss Foley lives on this street.'

    'Sure, fourth house, but - '

    Jim strolled, casually whistling, hands in pockets, Will with him. At Miss Foley's house they glanced up.

    In one of the softly lit front windows, someone stood looking out.

    A boy, no more and no less than twelve years old.

    'Will!' cried Jim, softly. 'That boy - '

    'Her nephew. . .?'

    'Nephew, heck! Keep your head away. Maybe he can read lips. Walk slow. To the corner and back. You see his face? The eyes, Will! That's one part of people don't change, young, old, six or sixty! Boy's face, sure, but the eyes were the eyes of Mr Cooger!'

    'No!'

    'Yes!'

    They both stopped to enjoy the swift pound of each other's heart.

    'Keep moving.' They moved. Jim held Will's arm tight, leading him. 'You did see Mr Cooger's eyes huh? When he held us up fit to crack our heads together? You did see the boy, just off the ride? He looked right up near me, hid in the tree, and boy! It was like opening the door of a furnace! I'll never forget those eyes! And there they are now, in the window. Turn around. Now, let's walk back easy and nice and slow. . . .We got to warn Miss Foley what's hiding in her house, don't we?'

    'Jim, look, you don't give a darn about Miss Foley or what's in her house!'

    Jim said nothing. Walking arm in arm with Will he just looked over at his friend and blinked once, let the lids come down over his shiny green eyes and go up.

    And again Will had the feeling about Jim that he had always had about an old almost forgotten dog. Some time every year that dog, good for many months, just ran on out into the world and didn't come back for days and finally did limp back all burred and scrawny and odorous of swamps and dumps; he had rolled in the dirty mangers and foul dropping-places of the world, simply to turn home with a funny little smile pinned to his muzzle. Dad had named the dog Plato, the wilderness philosopher, for you saw by his eyes there was nothing he didn't know. Returned, the dog would live in innocence again, tread patterns of grace, for months, then vanish, and the whole thing start over. Now, walking here he thought he heard Jim whimper under his breath. He could feel the bristles stiffen all over Jim. He felt Jim's ears flatten, saw him sniff the new dark. Jim smelled smells that no one knew, heard ticks from clocks that told another time. Even his tongue was strange now, moving along his lower, and now his upper lip as they stopped in front of Miss Foley's house again.

    The front window was empty.

    'Going to walk up and ring the bell,' said Jim.

    'What, meet him face to face?!'

    'My aunt's eyebrows, Will We got to check, don't we? Shake his paw, stare him in his good eye or some such ,and if it is him - '

    'We don't warn, Miss Foley right in front of him, do we?'

    'We'll phone her later, dumb. Up we go!'

    Will sighed and let himself be walked up the steps wanting but not wanting to know if the boy in this house had Mr Cooger hid but showing like a firefly between his eyelashes.

    Jim rang the bell.

    'What if he answers?' Will demanded. 'Boy, I'm so scared I could sprinkle dust. Jim, why aren't you scared, why?'

    Jim examined both of his untrembled hands. I'll be darned,' he gasped. 'You're right! I'm not!'

    The door swung wide.

    Miss Foley beamed out at them.

    'Jim! Will! How nice.'

    'Miss Foley,' blurted Will. 'You okay?

    Jim glared at him. Miss Foley laughed.

    'Why shouldn't I be?'

    Will flushed. 'All those darn carnival mirrors - '

    'Nonsense, I've forgotten all about it. Well, boys, are you coming in?

    She held the door wide.

    Will shuffled a foot and stopped.

    Beyond Miss Foley, a beaded curtain hung like a dark blue thunder shower across the parlour entry.

    Where the coloured rain touched the floor, a pair of dusty small shoes poked out. Just beyond the downpour the evil boy loitered.

    Evil? Will blinked. Why evil? Because. 'Because' was reason enough. A boy, yes, and evil.

    'Robert?' Miss Foley turned, calling through the dark blue always-falling beads of rain. She took Will's hand and gently pulled him inside. 'Come meet two of my students.'

    The rain poured aside. A fresh candy-pink hand broke through, all by itself, as if testing the weather in the hall.

    Good grief, thought Will, he'll look me in the eye! see the merry-go-round and himself on it moving back, back. I know it's printed on my eyeball like I been struck by lightning!

    'Miss Foley!' said Will.

    Now a pink face stuck out through the dim frozen necklaces of storm.

    'We got to tell you a terrible thing.'

    Jim struck Will's elbow, hard, to shut him.

    Now the body came out through the dark watery flow of beads. The rain shushed behind the small boy.

    Miss Foley leaned toward him, expectant. Jim gripped his elbow, fiercely. He stammered, flushed, then spat it out:

    'Mr Crosetti!'

    Quite suddenly, clearly  he saw the sign in the barber's window. The sign seen but not seen as they ran by:

CLOSED ON ACCOUNT OF ILLNESS.

    'Mr Crosetti!' he repeated, and added swiftly. 'He's. . .dead!'

    'What. . .the barber?'

    'The barber?' echoed Jim.

    'See this haircut?' Will turned, trembling, his hand to his head. 'He did it. And we just walked by there and the sign was up and people told us - '

    'What a shame.' Miss Foley was reaching out to fetch the strange boy forward: 'I'm so sorry. Boys, this is Robert, my nephew from Wisconsin.'

    Jim stuck out his hand. Robert the Nephew examined it, curiously. 'What are you looking at?' he asked.

    'You look familiar,' said Jim.

    Jim! Will yelled to himself.

    'Like an uncle of mine,' said Jim, all sweet and calm.

    The nephew flicked his eyes to Will, who looked only at the floor, afraid the boy would see his eyeballs whirl with the remembered carousel. Crazily, he wanted to hum the backward music.

    Now, he thought, face him!

    He looked up straight at the boy.

    And it was wild and crazy and the floor sank away beneath for there was the pink shiny Hallowe'en mask of a small pretty boy's face, but almost as if holes were cut where the eyes of Mr Cooger shone out, old, old, eyes as bright as sharp blue stars and the light from those stars taking a million years to get here. And through the little nostrils cut in the shiny mask, Mr Cooger's breath went in steam, came out ice. And the Valentine candy tongue moved small behind those trim white candy-kernel teeth.

    Mr Cooger, somewhere behind the eye-slits, went blink-click with his insect-Kodak pupils. The lenses exploded like suns, then burnt chilly and serene again.

    He swivelled his glance to Jim. Blink-click. He had Jim flexed, focused, shot, developed, dried, filed away in the dark. Blink-click.

    Yet this was only a boy standing in a hall with two other boys and a women. . .

    And all the while Jjm gazed steadily, back, feathers unruffled, taking his own pictures of Robert.

    'Have you boys had supper?', asked Miss Foley. 'We're just sitting down - '

    'We got to go!'

    Everyone looked at Will as if amazed he didn't want to stick here forever.

    'Jim - ' he stammered. 'Your mom's home alone - '

    'Oh, sure,' Jim said, reluctantly.

    'I know what.' The nephew paused for their attention. When their faces turned, Mr Cooger inside the nephew went silently blink-click, blink-click, listening through the toy ears, watching through the toy-charm eyes, whetting the doll's mouth with a Pekingese tongue. 'Join us later for dessert, huh?'

    'Dessert?'

    'I'm taking Aunt Willa to the carnival.' The boy stroked Miss Foley's arm until she laughed nervously.

    'Carnival?' cried Will, and lowered his voice. 'Miss Foley, you said - '

    'I said I was foolish and scared myself,' said Miss Foley. 'It's Saturday night the best night for tent shows and showing my nephew the sights.'

    'Join us?' asked Robert, holding Miss Foley's hand. 'Later?'

    'Great!' said Jim.

    'Jim.' said Will. 'We been out all day. Your mom's sick.'

    'I forgot.' Jim, flashed him a look filled with purest snake-poison.

    Flick. The nephew made an X-ray of both, showing them, no doubt, as cold bones trembling in warm flesh. He stuck out his hand.

    'Tomorrow, then. Meet you by the side-shows.'

    'Swell!' Jim grabbed the small hand.

    'So long!' Will jumped out the door, then turned with a last agonized appeal to the teacher.

    'Miss Foley. . .?'

    'Yes, Will?'

    Don't go with that boy, he thought. Don't go near the shows. Stay home, oh please! But then he said:

    'Mr Crosetti's dead.'

    She nodded, touched, waiting for his tears. And while she waited, he dragged Jim outside and the door swung shut on Miss Foley and the pink small face with the lenses in it going blink-click, snapshotting two incoherent boys, and them fumbling down the steps in October dark, while the merry-go-round started again in Will's head, rushing while the leaves in the trees above cracked and fried with wind. Aside, Will spluttered, 'Jim, you shook hands with him! Mr Cooger! You're not going to meet him!?'

    'It's Mr Cooger, all right. Boy, those eyes. If I met him tonight, we'd solve the whole shooting match. What's eating you, Will?'

    'Eating me!' At the bottom of the steps now, they tussled in fierce and frantic whispers, glancing up at the empty windows where, now and again, a shadow passed. Will stopped. The music turned in his head. Stunned, he squinched his eyes. 'Jim, the music that the calliope played when Mr Cooger got younger - '

    'Yeah?'

    'It was the "Funeral March"! Played backward!'

    'Which "Funeral March"?

    'Which! Jim, Chopin only wrote one tune! The "Funeral March"!'

    'But why played backward?'

    'Mr Cooger was marching away from the grave, not toward it, wasn't he, getting younger, smaller, instead of older and dropping dead?'

    'Willy, you're terrific!'

    'Sure, but - ' Will stiffened. 'He's there, The window, again. Wave at him. So long! Now, walk and whistle something. Not Chopin, for gosh sakes - '

    Jim waved. Will waved. Both whistled, 'Oh, Susanna.'

    The shadow gestured small in the high window.

    The boys hurried off down the street.

Two suppers were waiting in two houses.

    One parent yelled at Jim, two parents yelled at Will.

    Both were sent hungry upstairs.

    It started at seven o'clock It was done by seven-three.

    Doors slammed. Locks Clanked.

    Clocks ticked.

    Will stood by the door. The telephone was locked away outside. And even if he called, Miss Foley wouldn't answer. By now she'd be gone beyond town. . .good grief? Anyway, what could he say? Miss Foley, that nephew's no nephew? That boy's no boy? Wouldn't she laugh? She would. For the nephew was a nephew, the boy was a boy, or seemed such.

    He turned to the window. Jim, across the way, stood facing the same dilemma, in his room. Both struggled. It was too early to raise the windows and stage-whisper to each other. Parents below were busy growing crystal-radio peach-fuzz in their ears, alert.

    The boys threw themselves on their separate beds in their separate houses, probed mattresses for chocolate chunks put away against the lean years, and ate moodily.

    Clocks ticked.

    Nine. Nine-thirty. Ten.

    The knob rattled, softly, as Dad unlocked the door.

    Dad! thought Will. Come in! We got to talk!

    But Dad chewed his breath in the hall. Only his confusion, his always puzzled, half-bewildered face could be felt beyond the door.

    He won't come in, thought Will. Walk around, talk around, back off from a thing, yes. But come sit, listen? When had he, when would he, ever?

    'Will. . .?

    Will quickened.

    "Will. . .' said Dad, 'be careful.'

    'Careful?' cried mother, coming along the hall. 'Is that all you're going to say?'

    'What else?' Dad was going downstairs now. 'He jumps, I creep. How can you get two people together like that? He's too young, I'm too old. God, sometimes I wish we'd never. . .'

    The door shut. Dad was walking away on the sidewalk.

    Will wanted to fling up the window and call. Suddenly, Dad was so lost in the night. Not me, don't worry about me, Dad, he thought, you, Dad, stay in! It's not safe! Don't go!

    But he didn't shout. And when he softly raised the window at last, the street was empty, and he knew it would be just a matter of time before that light went on in the library across town. When rivers flooded, when fire fell from the sky, what a fine place the library was, the many rooms, the books. With luck, no one found you. How could they! - when you were off to Tanganyika in '98, Cairo in 1812, Florence in 1492!?

    '. . .careful. . .'

    What did Dad mean? Did he smell the panic, had he heard the music, had he prowled near the tents? No. Not Dad ever.

    Will tossed a marble over at Jim's window.

    Tap. Silence.

    He imagined Jim seated alone in the dark, his breath like phosphorous on the air, ticking away to himself.

    Tap. Silence.

    This wasn't like Jim. Always before, the window slid up, Jim's head popped out, ripe with yells, secret hissings, giggles, riots and rebel charges.

    'Jim, I know you're there!'

    Tap.

    Silence.

    Dad's out in the town. Miss Foley's with you-know-who! he thought. Good gosh, Jim, we got to do something! Tonight!

    He threw a last marble.

    . . .tap. . .

    It fell to the hushed grass below.

    Jim did not come to the window.

    Tonight, thought Will. He bit his knuckles. He lay back cold straight stiff on his bed.