in1 Read online

  Barry pointed at the overstuffed book bag. "Not planning. I'm doing it. Tonight. I just wanted to tell you first, you know? I didn' t want to leave without saying goodbye. But now that I 'm here… well, goodbye sucks, doesn't it?"

  "Then don't say goodbye." Timmy's voice cracked. "Stay. We'll figure something out." Barry began to cry, softly. "How?"

  "I don't know. But we will." Timmy's eyes filled with tears. "We'll figure it out together. Me, you, and Dougthe Three Musketeers. We' re like Luke, Han, and Chewie, man. You can 't break up a good team like that."

  "Only if I get to be Han."

  Timmy smiled. "Sure. I'd rather be Luke, anyway, and Doug's obviously a good pick for Chewbacca."

  Both of them wiped their eyes and then laughed.

  "Jesus Christ." Barry groaned. "It hurts to laugh. But it feels good, too." Timmy appraised his friend's face. "He really cut up your cheek. What did that? A knife or something?"

  Barry's expression darkened. "No. It was a ring." Page 118

  "A ring?"

  "Yeah." He paused, unsure of how to continue. "Timmy, I need to tell you something. It might make you angry."

  "Dude, I couldn't be any more pissed off at your old man than I am right now."

  "Don't be so sure." He took a deep breath, kneaded his ribs, and then continued.

  "Your grandfather had his Freemason's ring on when he was buried, right?"

  "Yeah. Why?"

  "Because that was what cut my cheek up tonight. My old man was wearing it." To Barry's chagrin, Timmy seemed only mildly surprised.

  "Aren't you pissed off?" Barry asked. "He stole your grandpa's ring, man!"

  "I've got something I need to tell you, too," Timmy said. "I suspect that your dad's taken a lot more than just the ring."

  Barry was shocked. "What are you talking about? You mean you knew he was robbing dead people? You didn't say anything?"

  Timmy stood up, peered through his window, and made sure his parents were still asleep.

  He didn' t hear them moving around, and there were no lights on. Assured they were safe, he knelt back down and told Barry everything he suspected and everything that had transpired since their fight with Barry ' s father behind the utility shed. He started with the legend that Reverend Moore had related to Katie and him, and then worked his way chronologically through the past month ' s events, lying out the supporting evidence and bolstering it with his research.

  Finally, Timmy voiced his suspicions regarding Mr. Smeltzer 's compliance, and added Barry's admission that his father had stolen Timmy's grandfather's ring as further proof. He left out his suspicions that it had also been Barry' s own father who hid Pat kemp

  's body, because he wasn't sure how Barry would react to that. Grave robbing was one thing. Accessory to murder was another.

  When he was finished, Timmy braced himself, expecting Barry to scoff just like his parents had. But he'd forgotten something. Barry was his friendand Barry believed him without question.

  "I knew about the old church," he said. "My old man told me about it once. If you look carefully, you can still see some of the foundation stones. The grass has pretty much grown over them, though. There are pictures of it down at the library. Never heard about the ghoul, though."

  "Well, for whatever reason, they imprisoned it, rather than just killing the thing. I don't know why. But now it's loose again."

  "Okay," Barry said. "What are you going to do about it? Have you told your parents about the ghoul?"

  "Yeah." Timmy's voice grew sullen. "They didn't believe me. Dad grounded me and…

  ripped up my comic collection."

  Barry gasped. "Holy shit! All of them?"

  Timmy nodded. "Every last one."

  "Oh, man. That's… I don't know what to say. My old man, I could see him doing that. But your dad? Never in a million years."

  "Well, believe it. The proofs sitting in the basement right now."

  "I'm sorry about that, man. What are you going to do?" Timmy shrugged. "Nothing I can do. And it's not like I can run away with you. Not now. Not after…"

  "Katie?"

  "Yeah. You can understand that, right?"

  Barry spoke slowly, choosing his words with care. "I guess. I mean, she's cute and all. I Page 119

  don' t know. Just seems like me, you, and Doug have been hanging out longer. I 'd think we would come first."

  Timmy's temper flared. "I'm putting everybody first. If I don't do something about this ghoul, then everyone's in danger. Katie. Doug"

  "Not me," Barry interrupted. "I'm out of here, man. Tonight."

  "What about Doug?"

  "I'm stopping at his house next. It's on my way. Who knows? He might want to go with me, crazy as his mom is."

  Timmy's spirits sank even lower. He hadn't considered the possibility that both of his friends might want to leave.

  "Doug won't go. He'd chicken out."

  "Probably," Barry agreed, "but I at least want to tell him bye."

  "Then what?"

  "Figured I'd walk to Porters or Jefferson and hop a freight train. They're both close enough that I could make it before dawn. Then I' ll just hide out in the woods along the tracks until a train comes by. I don ' t want to grab one here in town because all of the ones that come into the paper mill are either coal trains or log carriers, and it would be too hard to hide on one of those. Dangerous to hop, too."

  "So you'll hop a train. And go where?"

  "Wherever it takes me. Hanover is too close, but maybe Westminster or Baltimore or down into West Virginia or Ohio. Wherever. As long as it' s away from here, I really don 't care."

  "Barry, you just had the shit beat out of you, man. You can barely talk. You're moving like you're eighty years old. There's no way you can hop a train tonight."

  "Well, then what do you suggest I do, Timmy? Hitchhike? Get picked up by some psycho, and dumped alongside Interstate Eightythree? No thanks. Or maybe busted by the cops and then brought back home to my old man?"

  "Stick around for another day. Rest up a little bit. Recuperate. Doug and I will hide you. When your mom reports you missing, we'll say we don' t know anything about it. At least get better before you leave."

  "Where are you gonna hide me? The Dugout? No way I'm staying there. Not if there really is a ghoul on the loose. And I can' t stay here. Your parents would want to call the cops and stuff."

  "And then your dad would go to jail."

  "Probably not. This isn' t TV. And even if the cops did put him in jail, what if they took me away from Mom and stuck me in a foster home? That would be just as bad."

  "How about you hide at Doug's house?"

  Barry snorted in derision. "Yeah, right. With his mom? Get real. Would you spend the night there?"

  "No."

  "I'm sorry, Timmy. I really am. But this is the way it's got to be. I can't stay around here another night. If I do, I'll never escape. I don't want that." They fell quiet again. Somewhere in the night, out on the main road, a car backfired. An owl hooted closer to them. The crickets had grown quiet. Barry slowly stood up. "Well, I guess this is it." He stuck out his hand. Timmy stared at it. After a moment, he took it. Their grips were firm. Then Barry pulled him to his feet.

  "See," Barry said. "I'm feeling better already. Told you it wasn't as bad as it looks." Timmy didn't respond.

  "You gonna be okay?" Barry asked.

  Timmy nodded. He was afraid to speak, afraid that he might start crying again. Page 120

  "Seriously, the pain isn't as bad now," Barry said. "My lip still hurts, and my cheek. But the aches and stuff are going away."

  "That's good. Maybe you can take another break when you get to Doug's."

  "Yeah."

  They stood there, neither one knowing what to say, and neither one wanting to be the first to turn away from the other. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Barry spoke.

  "I'm gonna miss you, man."

  "Yeah…" The lump rising in his throat cut off the rest of
Timmy's reply. They hugged, quick and hard this time. When they disengaged from one another, Timmy stared at the ground and Barry looked into the night sky. Then, shuffling his feet in reluctance, Barry picked up the book bag and sighed.

  "Take it easy, Timmy."

  "You too. You got my address, right?"

  "Sure do. I'll write to you."

  "Okay. Be careful, dude."

  "I will. Nothing out there can be any worse than what we've got right here. I'll be all right."

  "Well…" Timmy paused, and then looked him in the eyes. "You're the best friend I've ever had. You and Doug. Never thought we' d leave each other. I love you, man." Barry smiled, sadly. "I love you, too. And I will always be your friend. Even when you do grow up and become a rich and famous comic book writer." He smiled. Timmy tried his best to return the gesture, but found that he couldn't. It was more of a grimace than a grin.

  Then Barry turned to walk away.

  Timmy watched him go. His fists balled at his sides.

  Barry kept walking. His shoulders were slumped. He stared at the ground. Suddenly, Timmy lurched forward and grabbed his arm.

  "Look. I can't do this without you, man. You' re my best friend in the world and I need you. Please stay. Just long enough to help me beat this thing in the cemetery? Please? I need your help."

  Barry grinned. "It's hard being your friend sometimes, Graco. You always have to be the one in charge."

  "Yeah, but this time I mean it. I need your help. I can't do this by myself."

  "Well, since you're admitting that you can't do it without me, then I guess I have to, don't I?"

  Timmy gasped, relieved. Then he laughed with joy.

  Barry set the book bag down. "So, what's the plan, oh fearless leader?"

  "I thought you'd never ask."

  "Squirt guns with lemon juice again?"

  "Nope. Something better. Let me take a leak real quick and I'll tell you all about it."

  Chapter Fourteen

  "Are you insane?" Barry shouted. "It will never work."

  "Yes, it will," Timmy said. "And keep your voice down. You want somebody to hear us?"

  "Yeah, if only to stop us before we get killed. This is a dumb idea."

  "As long as you guys listen to me, there's no way we can fail. What's the worse that could happen?"

  Sputtering, Barry raised his arms to the night sky. "Didn't you just hear what I said? We could get killed! What' s the worse that could happen? How about the ghoul eats us for Page 121

  breakfast, man? How about all three of us end up like Pat? You don 't think that's bad?"

  "None of that is going to happen. You've got to trust me."

  "Last time we trusted you was with Catcher, and look what happened." Timmy stopped walking. "That was your fault."

  Barry grew sullen. "Okay. You made your point."

  They continued on, crossing from Timmy's yard into the Wahl's. The first part of Timmy' s plan was simple. They intended to go the long way around to the Dugout, avoiding Barry's house and the church and the cemetery. Instead, they'd cut through the Wahl's, cross the road, and then walk through Luke Jones' s pasture. Hopefully, the bulls were penned up for the night. When they were near the Dugout, they'd come back up to the fence line. Timmy insisted that they needed the map for his plan to work, and that they couldn 't wait until daylight to get it because Barry's dad might see themnot to mention that Timmy was grounded and Barry would soon be listed as a runaway.

  Timmy had tried one more time to convince his friend to go back home for the evening, but Barry refused. Instead, he would hide out in Bowman 's Woods for the day, while Timmy plotted their next course of action.

  Timmy's intent was simple. Tomorrow, he would use the map to chart out the possible locations for the ghoul's network of tunnels. He' d start with what they knew the hole in the utility shed and the places where the ground was sinking, and mark those on the map. Then he' d connect the dots, and that should give them an idea of where the tunnels lay. While he was doing this, Barry would sneak off to Doug ' s house and inform him of the plan, then go back into hiding in the woods. Tomorrow night, the three of them would sneak into the cemetery and, utilizing Mr. Smeltzer ' s picks and shovels, would dig up the tunnels in various locations, flooding them with daylight when the sun rose. They crept through the Wahl's yard, skirting around their swimming pool. Inside the house, the elderly couple's miniature Schnauzer yipped in alarm.

  "Shit." Timmy urged his friend on. "Pookie's awake. Go!"

  They hurried on, crossing the road and jumping the fence. Barry, normally much stronger than Timmy, had trouble keeping up. Once they were safely out of sight and in the pasture, they stopped to take a rest.

  Barry sighed. "Wish I'd left this book bag back at your place. It's getting heavy."

  "Leave it here. We'll get it on the way back."

  "Good idea." He unzipped the bag and ruffled around inside it. He pulled out the flashlight and his pocketknife and then zipped it back up.

  "You ready?" Timmy asked.

  Barry nodded.

  They walked on. Almost an hour had passed since Barry had first shown up at Timmy' s bedroom window, and it was now well after three, the longest part of the night, yet neither one of them were tired. They should have been. They knew this. Both boys had been through more that day than the combined events of the summer so far. Yet they weren ' t fatigued. Far from it. They were both excited and angry and a little bit scared, and the adrenalin kept them moving. Especially Barry, battered as he was.

  "So, tomorrow night," Barry said, "what if the ghoul shows up while we're digging?

  What happens then? You said daylight was the only thing that would kill him."

  "Don't worry about that. I'll take care of it."

  "You've got a plan for that?"

  Timmy paused. "No. But I will by tomorrow night. I'm sure there's something in one of my comic"

  He stopped, jarred by the knowledge that his comic book collection no longer Page 122

  existed.

  "I'll come up with something."

  They continued through the pasture and then turned toward the fence, coming up behind the Dugout. They carefully scanned the cemetery beyond, but there was no sign of monstersparents or otherwise. Everything was silent. They approached the Dugout. The clubhouse lay hidden in shadows, invisible from their vantage point. They checked again to make sure the coast was clear, then opened the trap door. Timmy turned on his flashlight and swung around, preparing to climb down the ladder. Barry grabbed his arm. "Wait a second."

  Timmy paused. "What?"

  "Thought I saw something in your flashlight beam." Barry turned on his own flashlight and shined it down into the hole. Both boys gasped aloud.

  The Dugout was gone. The roof was still there, still concealing it from the outside world. The stovepipe still jutted from the ground, providing fresh air below. But the ladder led down into darkness. The fort was now a gaping chasm. The entire floor had disappeared, and all of their belongings had apparently gone with it. The tunnel dropped straight down for about five feet before sloping away into parts unknown. It looked like it ran in the direction of the cemetery, but they couldn ' t be sure from where they stood.

  At the same time, they both said, "Oh shit…"

  Perched on the ladder, Timmy shined his flashlight around, studying the damage. He noticed a few random items at the mouth of the crevice, caught at the tunnel' s bend an issue of Cracked, a plastic SpiderMan cup from 711, an old shotgun shell they'd found in the woods.

  A discarded KitKat wrapper.

  The map.

  "Shine your light down there," Timmy told Barry. He set his own flashlight on the ground and then started down the ladder.

  "Are you nuts? What are you doing?"

  "I'm going in."

  "No you're not. This isn't a comic book, dude. You and I both know what did this. You were right. This is our proof. Let' s get the hell out of here and call the cops."

  "Yo
u didn't want to call the cops before."

  "That was about my old man. And besides, we didn't have any hard proof before. We do now. They can't ignore this."

  "I'm going down there," Timmy insisted. "You just stand guard for me."

  "Timmy!"

  Ignoring his protests, Timmy started down the ladder. Without even thinking about it, Barry pulled the BB pistol out of his waistband with his free hand and pointed it down the hole. Just holding the weapon made him feel better.

  When Timmy reached the bottom, he dangled his legs over the hole and glanced around, unsure of what to do next. His pulse pounded in his ears, drowning out Barry 's alarmed whispers. Swallowing hard, he closed his eyes and let go of the rungs. Barry gripped the flashlight and BB pistol and watched in terrified amazement. Timmy plummeted downward and landed with a smack, sending a cloud of dirt into the air. Immediately, he began to slide down into the tunnel. He scrabbled, grasping at the soil, trying to arrest his fall. Above him, Barry struggled to see. The swirling dust blocked his flashlight beam. When Timmy reached the curve, he stopped sliding. Inching forward, he grabbed the map and the candy wrapper. Then he crawled back to the ladder. He slipped a few times, and each time he did, his heart leapt into his throat. When Page 123

  his hand closed around the rung, both boys breathed a sigh of relief. Timmy stuffed the rescued items in his waistband and then climbed back up.

  "You okay?"

  Timmy nodded, out of breath.

  "That was really stupid, man."

  "I know. But we need the map."

  "Let's get the hell out of here now. Okay? This whole thing gives me the creeps. It's too quiet, like in a movie."

  "Hang on one second. I just want to make sure the map is okay." Timmy unrolled the map and spread it out on the ground. He paused, his fingers tracing over the topography. Then he looked up at Barry. His eyes were wide.

  "What's wrong?"

  Timmy pointed. "There's some new stuff on here that wasn't on it before."

  "Where?"

  Timmy showed him, pointing out the section of woods where they'd found Pat Kemp' s abandoned Nova. The area around the edge, which had been left blank before, was now partially filled in. The illustrations were obviously made by Doug 's hand, and it looked as if he'd stopped drawing midtree.