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  The volume was turned up loud and the sound of a canned laugh track filled the house. She barely acknowledged him as he walked into the living room. Carol Keiser wore the same nightgown she ' d had on two days before, and her hair was tangled and unwashed. An empty bag of Utz potato chips lay beside her, and crumbs dotted her lap. A bottle of vodka sat on the floor, snug against the chair.

  "I'm home," Doug said.

  Her eyes flicked toward him. "Where you been? I hollered for you earlier. I wanted you to ride your bike down to Spring Grove and pick me up some things." Her speech was slurred, her movements jerky. Doug glanced down at the bottle and saw that it was almost empty. He knew from experience that it would join the other empty bottles tossed about all over the house, and then she'd start a new one.

  "I wasn't here, Mom. I spent the night over at Timmy's."

  "You were gone last night?"

  "Yeah." Then he thought to himself, Did you miss me?

  Grunting, she turned her attention back to the television. Doug cleared his throat. "Have you watched the news?"

  "No," she said. "Why? Are you on it?"

  He sighed. "Maybe. I'm not sure, really. Some bad stuff happened."

  "What did you do? You steal something?"

  "No. Some kids from my school are missing. A few other people, too. The police might call here. They might need to talk to me some more."

  Now he had her attention. She picked up the massive remote control and turned the volume down. Then she studied him with drooping, bloodshot eyes.

  "Why do they need to talk to you? Are you involved, Dougie?"

  "No. I didn't do anything. But Timmy and I found something today. Pat Kemp's car. Out past the graveyard, in that little stretch of woods next to Mr. Jones' s cornfield. It was… pretty gross. The police think "

  "Are you in trouble? Are the police coming here?"

  "No, Mom. I told you"

  "Then don't worry about it. You don't tell the police anything."

  "But"

  "No arguments. I don't want yoo talking to policemen. They might trick you. Make you tell them things that aren't true or say things you don't mean. And I especially don't want them coming here. You understand me?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Good boy. You know I love you, Dougie. I only want what's best for my little boy." He nodded.

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  She smiled. "You hungry?"

  Doug paused. He wanted to talk about his day, about what they'd found. Seeing Pat' s remains had disturbed him deeply. Mrs. Graco had listened to him on the way home, and talked to him in soft, reassuring tones. She 'd cared. He wanted the same thing from his own mother.

  He opened his mouth, intent on telling her that, but instead, he said, "I'm a little hungry, I guess."

  "There's chicken in the fridge. Stay out of trouble with the police. Remember, I don't want them coming here, and I don't want you talking to them." She turned her attention back to the television and fumbled for the remote. Doug' s shoulders slumped; he walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. The aroma of cold chicken wafted out of the door. His stomach churned. He thought again of Pat what he'd looked like, how he' d smelled. Deciding he had no appetite after all, Doug closed the door and walked back down the hall to his room.

  "Maybe you and your friends should play here for a few days," his mother called after him. "I'll keep the three of you out of trouble."

  "Yeah, maybe." Sour stomach acid burned the back of his throat.

  "Barry and Timmy don't come over here much anymore."

  "They've been busy, Mom."

  "You should invite them over. They can spend the night." He unlocked his bedroom door and slipped inside, closing and locking it behind him. Then, still dressed and without even bothering to remove his muddy shoes, he lay down on the bed, curled into a ball, and stared at nothing.

  Sometimes he felt very oldmuch older than twelve.

  And sometimes, he felt like dying.

  Timmy was in his room when his mother returned from dropping Doug off. He sat crosslegged on the floor, listening to a Cheap Trick cassette that Pat Kemp had once given him.

  "You 'll like it," the older boy had promised, and he'd been right. Now, Timmy let the music wash over him and thought about the day' s events. It seemed a fitting tribute.

  "Mommy's all right. Daddy's all right. They just seem a little weird…" He chuckled. "Boy, ain't that the truth."

  There was a knock on his bedroom door. Timmy turned his stereo down until it was barely audible.

  "Come in."

  The door opened and his mom peeked her head inside. She smiled.

  "You okay, hon?"

  He nodded. "Yeah, I think so."

  "Can I come in?"

  "Sure."

  She walked into the room and sat down on his bed. "What you doing, kiddo?"

  "Just listening to some tapes. Pat gave this one to me. I was just thinking about that. I mean, we weren't exactly friends or anything, because he was older than us. But he was always nice to us. He treated us like little brothers, I guess."

  "I see." She paused. "Do you want to talk about what happened today?" Timmy shrugged. "I think I'm okay, Mom. I mean, it just sucks. Pat was a cool guy, and I feel bad for the Moores,"especially Katie, he thought"but what can I do?"

  "Doug said it was pretty bad, when the police opened the car's trunk. Did you see much?" His face paled at the memory. "Yeah."

  "Do you want to talk about that?"

  He breathed a heavy sigh. "It… it wasn't like in comic books and movies. The smell was Page 93

  the worst. The sound of flies. And the… maggots. I' ve seen maggots before, like when there's a dead groundhog on the road. One time, we were riding our bikes down to the dump and Barry stuck an MEighty in a dead groundhog and blew it up and there were maggots everywhere. That was kinda cool. But this was… different." She frowned. "You boys blew up a dead animal?"

  "It was cool, Mom. But that wasn't anything like this. This was…" Still frowning, she nodded with tentative encouragement.

  "I know that' s just a part of the process," Timmy continued, "the maggots and stuff. But it made me think about Grandpa, and about what really happens to us after we die. And that freaked me out. You think about dead people going to heaven, but not about what happens under the ground. Like I said, it freaked me out for a little while. But Katie…" He trailed off, suddenly nervous and uncomfortable.

  He was embarrassed to tell his mother anything about Katie. Elizabeth waited patiently. "Yes? Katie what?"

  "She cheered me up. I'm okay, now."

  "Well, good." His mother rose, and patted him gently on the head. "I'll leave you alone. If you want to talk about it though, I' m here. Your father is working late, since he went in late this morning. Are you hungry?"

  "Not really."

  "Well, if you get hungry, let me know and I'll put a pizza in the oven or something."

  "Okay, Mom. Thanks."

  She started to leave, then turned. "Timmy? You know we love you, right? Your father and I?"

  "Sure. I know."

  "It' s been a really hard summer so far, what with your grandfather and the extra hours your father is putting in at the mill. But you seem… different, the last few weeks. Withdrawn, like something 's on your mind. Is there anything else that's bothering you?

  Something else that you want to talk about?"

  Sure, Mom. I'm going with Katie Moore now, and I can hardly believe it because it seems like a dream, and meanwhile, Barry' s dad is an abusive asshole and I think he 's up to something and he has forbidden us to hang out with Barry anymore and Doug's mom is having sex with him.

  "No, Mom. Honestly, I'm okay. Like you said, it's just been a weird summer. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'll be kind of glad when it' s over and school starts again."

  "Okay. Well, I'll leave you alone. Your father will probably want to talk to you when he gets home. Be patient with him. He' s tired and stressed. I guess w
e all are."

  "Yeah."

  "You and Doug might be on the evening news. Want to see?"

  "No. I think I've seen enough for one day." "Love you. Try to get some rest, okay?" Timmy nodded, and she closed the door. His mother' s footsteps faded down the hall. He reached over and turned the stereo back up. Cheap Trick was still playing.

  "… but don't give yourself away… away… away…"

  He sat there for a few more minutes, remembering Pat and thinking about the day's events. Over and over again, his mind was drawn to Katiethe smell of her hair and the touch of her hand, and the way her eyes had sparkled in the sunlight. He missed her already and couldn 't believe he' d have to wait until Sunday to see her again. After a while, he pulled a box of comic books out from under his bed and began flipping through them. His nostrils flared as he breathed in the comforting, familiar smell of old paper. He came across a tattered issue of House of Secrets that he hadn' t read in a long time. The bottom section of the cover was missing and the paper around the staples was brown with age. He leaned back against the bed and began reading it. Page 94

  On the top of what was left of the ragged cover was the title, along with the logo: There's No Escape From… THE HOUSE OF SECRETS.

  In the left hand corner was the circular DC logo, as opposed to Marvel's. In the right hand corner was the issue number135, along with the price of thirtyfive cents. It was a late seventies back issue that he' d picked up at the flea market. Timmy grinned, nostalgic. In 1978, comics had cost a measly thirtyfive cents. Now, in 1984, they cost fifty cents, or sometimes more.

  It was a shame. On the cover, a man in a cape stood atop a coffin. A group of men were gathered around him. "In one minute," the man told them (via a word balloon), "I'll prove my power and bring Jennifer back to life!" The ghost of a blond woman, supposedly Jennifer, floated behind him.

  Timmy opened the comic. The cartoonish host (named Abel), talked directly to the reader from the first page, introducing each gruesome tale (his brother Cain was the host of DCs sister publication, House of Mystery).

  The first story was called "The Resurrection Business" and pretty much followed the events depicted on the front cover. The second story, "Don 't Look Now," was about some underground cave explorers fighting a group of monsters called Cypors. Timmy wasn' t impressed with either the writing or the artwork, and figured he and Doug could do better. Tempted to return the comic to the box and select something different, he flipped to the last story, "Down With the Dead Men." It took place in a cemetery, which piqued his flagging interest. A ghoul was on the loose; eating the bodies of the dead and hording the gold and jewelry with which they ' d been buried. In the comic, a group of villagers trapped the creature in a crypt and destroyed it by waiting for the sun to rise, then allowing the sunlight to shine through the crypt 's small window. Timmy bolted upright against the bed and stared at the last panel. He shut the comic book with trembling hands.

  Earlier, Reverend Moore had said that the church' s original founders had imprisoned a demon in the cemetery. The demon had supposedly followed them from the Old World and had been causing trouble. What if the demon had actually been a ghoul, just like in the comic book? What if they ' d imprisoned it in the grave, and bound it in place with the magic powwow symbol?

  And then, when the grave and the symbol were destroyed, the ghoul had been freed?

  Timmy had always been fascinated by the supernatural, and believed a lot of it. When they were six, he and Doug had thought they saw Bigfoot near the creek in Bowman ' s Woods. It had turned out just to be a tree, but Timmy still believed it was possible, and that perhaps one day they would come across Bigfoot in the forest. He believed in Bigfoot. He believed in ghosts. He believed in flying saucers and sea serpents and demonic possession. Timmy believed that people really did disappear inside the Bermuda Triangle and that some dinosaurs probably escaped the Ice Age and were still alive in the deep, dark corners of the world in places like Loch Ness and Lake Champlain. He believed in pyrokinesis, telekinesis, extrasensory perception, and remote viewing. He didn ' t know where these beliefs came from, just that he had always had them. The bookshelves in his room were full of books on the topics. He ' d always viewed the world with wideeyed fascination. He 'd noticed over the last few years that many of his friends at schoolfriends who had once believed just as fervently as himno longer considered the possible existence of ghosts or monsters. Perhaps they viewed them as fallacies, the same way he viewed

  Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. But while Timmy no longer fell for those parental inventions, he still believed in the supernatural. He believed in monsters. Maybe it was because he' d retained that sense of wonder that so many others his age seemed to be losing.

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  Or maybe it was because of what he read and what he wrote. The monsters were real, and not all of them were adults or attack dogs. Just because he couldn't see them, it didn't mean that they didn't exist. Timmy believed because he wanted to believe, and if growing up meant that time dulled your perceptions and eradicated that belief, erased the possibility of magic and monsters, then he wanted to stay twelve forever.

  He thought over everything he' d ever read about ghouls, both from this particular comic book and others. They lived in tunnels and warrens beneath cemeteries and burial grounds. They were nocturnal and hated sunlight. In this particular story, the ghoul had been destroyed by direct exposure to sunlight. It was that way in most of the other comics, too. On a few occasions, they ' d been destroyed by fire, and once by being dropped into a vat of acid, but daylight seemed to be the only sure bet. Ghouls ate the dead, which was why they dug beneath graveyards.

  The Golgotha Lutheran Church cemetery was collapsing in spots. The ground was sinking.

  There was a tunnel entrance inside the utility shed. Supposedly, according to Clark Smelter, there was a cave running beneath the grounds. But what if it wasn 't a cave? What if it was the ghoul' s tunnels, as it burrowed from grave to grave devouring the dead?

  Somehow, the sigil keeping it imprisoned had been shattered? It had begun feasting on the dead, first in the old part of the cemetery and then up into the new section. That would explain the steadily sinking ground, and why they'd first noticed it around the older graves.

  He thought about his grandfather's sinking grave. Could it have…?

  Timmy shuddered, unable to complete the thought.

  Ghouls ate the dead. All of the stories agreed on this. In some of them, they ate living humans as well. That would explain some of the recent disappearances. Maybe not the woman on the news, Deb Lentz (her car had been discovered all the way over in Porters), but possibly Ronny, Jason, and Steve maybe they' d been partying in the graveyard. And it certainly fit with Pat and Karen 's disappearance. It seemed pretty certain they' d been parked in the graveyard. Maybe the ghoul had eaten Karen and stuck Pat 's body in the trunk for safekeeping, intending to eat him later.

  There was only one problem with that theory. Could ghouls drive cars? Timmy looked at the comic again. If they had long claws in real life like they did in fiction, then probably not. Which meant that someone else had hidden the Nova.

  In some of the comics, the ghouls had used human helpers, sort of like Dracula' s assistant, Renfield. They worked for the creatures, did their bidding, helped to conceal their existence, and were paid with money and jewelry stolen from the dead extra baubles from the creatures' treasure hoard. In one back issue of Vault of Evil, the villagers had hung the ghoul's human familiar from an old tree in the graveyard. If there was a ghoul beneath the cemetery, did it have an assistant, and if so, who was it?

  It didn't take him long to come up with an answer. It was Barry's father who'd suddenly forbid them to play in the cemetery, who'd put up the no trespassing signs and had blown off the sinking graves by suggesting there were sinkholes. He' d had more money than normal, and Mrs. Smeltzer was wearing lots of new jewelry some of which seemed really old, like the antiques at the flea market. He was
angrier and more violent than ever, like he was suffering from stress or guilt or something.

  And Barry had mentioned several times that his father was out late at night. So if he was right, then how could he go about proving it? If Barry' s father found out he suspected, there was no telling what could happen. But if Timmy could prove there was a ghoul, if he could get evidence without Mr. Smeltzer finding out, then maybe people would believe him. He ' d have to tell Doug and Barry his suspicions. If he was right, they Page 96

  couldn 't just waltz down into the tunnel beneath the utility shed. That would be suicide. They' d have to be better prepared than that. He thought of Doug 's map. Tomorrow morning, if Mr. Smeltzer wasn't around, he' d get the map from the Dugout and try to figure out exactly how far the ghoul 's tunnels reached, based on where the graves were sinking. That was the first step.

  When his mother knocked on the door and told him to take a shower, brush his teeth, and get ready for bed, Timmy was so preoccupied with planning that he barely heard her. He rushed through the bathroom, barely allowing the water to hit his body before he was out of the shower and toweling off. He made quick work of putting on his pajamas and ran the toothbrush across his teeth once or twice. Then he went out into the living room.

  His mother was curled up on the couch watching a sitcom. She looked up from the television.

  "You ready for bed?"

  Timmy nodded.

  "You want to watch TV with me until your dad gets home?"

  "No, that's okay. I thought I might read for a while."

  "Alright." She paused, studying him. "You sure you're okay, Tim?" He smiled. "Positive. Everything's going to be just fine."

  "May I be excused?"

  Rhonda Smeltzer glanced over at her son's plate. His foodpork chops, mashed potatoes, and lima beanshad barely been touched. Barry had taken a few bites and then pushed the rest around with his fork. He hadn 't spoken during the entire meal. Indeed, he hadn' t spoken since returning home from the cemetery. When the police had shown up and questioned Clark, Barry had stayed in his room. His face was pale, and there were dark circles under his eyes.