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  smelled like strong cheese, left out in the summer sun for too long. Pungent. Spoiled. Bad milk spilled inside a Jiffy John.

  "Oh, Jesus… Somebody help! Help me!"

  He backed away, his foot colliding with the bottle.

  The creature hissed, its breath like a sewer.

  "Help!"

  The ghoul paused, studying the terrified man's dialect. Though it knew most of the languages of men, it had been some time since it had spoken them.

  "What is your name, human?"

  "Christ. It's a flashback. Agent Orange or something"

  "Silence. I am no vision or dream."

  The man flinched. "Yyou're real?"

  "Of course I am real. Again, what is your name? What are you called?"

  "CClark SSSmeltzer."

  "What are you doing here?"

  "I'm the ccaretaker. I was drinking, and II was mad. Angry. I kicked the tombstone. I'm ssorry. Was it yours?"

  The ghoul glanced down at the shattered fragments. The marker had cracked in half, the sigil cracking with it; thus, freedom.

  The man's eyes grew wider. "It wwas, wasn't it? Oh God…" The ghoul grinned. The caretaker began to sob.

  "Puhplease…" Clark started coughing again.

  "Please, what?"

  "I'm sorry. Pplease don't kkill me…"

  The ghoul's laughter was like a hissing steam kettle. "Kill you? I am not going to kill you. I can see inside your mind. You will be useful."

  Clark nodded furiously. "Yeah, that's right. II am useful. I can ffix your tombstone good as new."

  "You misunderstand. I am hungry."

  "Oh, shit…"

  "You bury the dead?"

  Clark nodded, recoiling from the ghoul's stench.

  "Tell me, son of Adam. Have you ever seen the fruits of your labor? Have you ever viewed a corpse after it has ripened beneath the soil? Seen the earthworms and millipedes crawling over and through it? Smelled the aroma of grave mold, or warmed yourself in its luminous glow? Wallowed in the rich, fatty stew of decomposition?" Clark retched. "No."

  The ghoul patted its stomach. "It is a treat. My kind was not supposed to enjoy it. It was our curse, to eat the dead. But in timein time, we grew to relish it. Savor it."

  "Yyou eat dead people?"

  "Yes, and you are going to feed me."

  Clark Smeltzer's bladder let go again, further soaking his pants. "Bbut you said you weren't gonna kkill me!"

  "I am not. I will allow you to live, so that you can continue to do your job. You will bury the dead, so that I can feed. You will also keep my existence a secret. For this, you will be richly rewarded. And there is something else you will do for me, as well. I require something else, in addition to sustenance. I am lonely." Swallowing hard, Clark stared in horror, listening as the creature spoke. It talked for a long time, and when Clark returned home, it was almost morning. The ghoul returned to the grave, hiding beneath the soil, sheltering itself from the sun. Waiting. No longer imprisoned, but free to come and go under the shelter of darkness. Page 38

  When it was night again, it began to dig. And to plan. First, it satisfied its hunger. That was an immediate need. It devoured the nearby dead, eating whatever flesh remained on the bones, and then the bones themselves, leaving nothing behind but whatever they 'd been buried injewelry and scraps of moldering clothing. Sated, the ghoul focused on fulfilling its longing for others of its kind a family. The caretaker was supposed to find it a mate, for its kind could mate with human females and had done so in the past. But the caretaker had not yet procured one. So when the boy and girl mated in the darkness, lying together on a blanket spread out between the tombstones, the ghoul had watched them from the shadows, and saw its chance. It had killed the boy, obeying the commandment and not partaking in the pumping blood or stillwarm flesh, and had taken the girl below. She was ripe and fertile. The creature could smell it on her. The ghoul wasted no time. Over the last two weeks it had created quite a den. The warren was centered in its original grave, but it had tunneled out in all directions, a spiraling labyrinth that grew larger and more complex. The girl was kept in the main chamber, in a nest the ghoul had built for her. It didn't have to worry about her fleeingher mind was too far gone for that, and even if she had been able to reason, she wouldn 't have been able to navigate the pitchblack maze of tunnels.

  It ate every night. At first, it had feasted in the nearby older graves, devouring the few human remains still left after one hundred years of interment, and snacking at night on nearby road kill, left to rot in the sun along the roads that bordered that portion of the cemetery. Then it had branched forward, burrowing up the hill to where the new graves lay. There, night after night, it had eaten its fill, rooting through the graves of James Sawyer and George Stevens, Cathy Luckenbaugh and Damon Bouchard and Britney Rodgers, Raymond and Sally Burke, Stephen Clarke, and many others. The dead could not scream. This night was no different. Dane Graco' s corpse was devoured within ten hours of its interment. The ghoul was displeased at the chemicals in the body, embalming fluid and the like. It longed for the old days. But food was food, and it was hungry. The next day, after the Gracos had buried their dearly departed and tried to move on with their lives, Clark Smeltzer checked a preappointed spot and found a new collection of graft, including Dane Graco's Freemason ring. He started thinking again about all his newfound wealth. He wasn't doing anything wrong, he reasoned. He wasn't digging up corpses and robbing them. And it wasn't like the dead needed that stuff anymore. Why shouldn' t he be able to turn it into money at the pawnshops? Even so, he had to be careful.

  Something like this ring, he couldn't sell it locally. He'd have to drive to Harrisburg or Baltimore to unload it.

  Beneath the small pile of jewelry and coins was a note, scrawled on a scrap of white clothcloth ripped from someone' s burial clothes. The note was brief, only seventeen words, but Clark had to struggle to read the handwriting.

  Continue to tell noone of my existence. Bring me more women. You will continue to be rewarded.

  He put the items in his pockets and his pants sagged from the weight of the coins and jewelry. Clark pulled them up, readjusted his belt, and walked away. He tried very hard to ignore the faint female screams he heard coming from beneath the ground.

  By noon he was drunk again, and nothing else mattered.

  Chapter Five

  Page 39

  Two weeks had passed since Dane Graco's death, and life went on for everyone else. Timmy's grief subsided, Barry's bruises healed, and Doug' s guilt faded. The boy's fears seemed to dry up, if only temporarily, in the warmth of the summer sun. They were twelve, after all, and resilient, still able to employ the defense mechanisms of childhood. Timmy still thought about his grandfather every day, especially if he passed by his grave, and he still experienced moments of deep heartache and bouts of crying. But the two weeks of summer vacation ' s start were like a new lease on life, afternoons spent fishing at the pond (Barry and Timmy caught sunfish and blue gills, while Doug usually caught sticks, and once, a turtle), hanging out together inside the Dugout, reading comics and girlie magazines, playing with Timmy 's Star Wars Death Star play set, complete with foam garbage for the trash compactor.

  They'd walk the railroad tracks and finding iron spikes, which they carried back to the Dugout. They spent time shooting rats at the town dump with their BB guns, and retaliating to the opening volley of a new war with their archrivals. Ronny and Jason had stumbled across Doug on the far side of Bowman ' s Woods and had tried to beat him up, chasing him all the way to Barry's house, the boys had retaliated by stealing Ronny' s bike and hiding it on the railroad tracks behind the paper mill. They waited and watched with a giddy mixture of excitement and dread as the coal train ran it over. During the mornings, Barry helped his father, mowing the grass in the cemetery and cleaning the inside of the church. Timmy helped out at home, doing his daily chores without complaint. His father had been nicer and more patient during the past two weeks, tellin
g Timmy that he loved him more often, and actually taking the time to talk to him about things. He was working more hours at the paper mill again, but when he got home, he made an effort to spend time with his son. Timmy wondered if maybe all the overtime his father was working stemmed from a desire to not think about his own father

  's death. But he didn' t ask. Instead, he weeded the garden and mowed their yard. He was glad that his father had taken an interest in him again.

  With no chores to perform or a father to please, Doug spent his mornings by himself, or helped Timmy with his own duties. As in previous summers, when they' d finished, they 'd ride their bikes over to the cemetery and give Barry a hand (if his father wasn' t around) so that the three of them could hang out sooner. It was during one of these moments when the three boys were clearing the dead floral displays from the graves that they discovered the first hole.

  Clark Smeltzer was working in the lower section of the graveyard, at the bottom of the hill where the older tombstones were located, fixing the sunken grave markers. He was out of sight and out of earshot when it happened.

  Barry had hooked a small wagon up to the back of the riding tractor. He drove it between the rows, humming a Billy Idol tune and thinking of maybe asking his mother if he could cut his hair short and spiky to match the singer's, while Doug and Timmy gathered the dead plants and tossed them into the back of the wagon. When they were finished, they would dump the debris in the mulch pile behind the shed.

  "Han Solo is a pussy," Doug said, clutching a handful of withered flowers. "The Doctor would totally kick his butt. You guys are high."

  "The Doctor doesn't even have a real spaceship," Timmy said. "He flies around in a telephone booth."

  They were arguing about who would win in a fight, Doctor Who or Han Solo from Star Wars. Barry revved the tractor, drowning him out in midsentence. Then Doug shouted in fright.

  They didn't hear his cries at first, over the roar of the tractor' s engine. Doug shouted louder. Barry engaged the parking brake and leapt off the tractor, and Timmy whirled around, expecting to see Ronny and the others giving Doug an atomic wedgie or Page 40

  something. Instead, their overweight friend had cast his dead flowers aside and was pawing at the ground. His left leg had disappeared into the earth from the knee down. His screech echoed across the graveyard.

  "Relax, man." Barry ran over to him and extended a hand, while Timmy turned off the tractor. "My old man will hear you."

  "Get me out of here. Something's got my ankle!"

  "It's just a groundhog hole."

  "Something's biting me!"

  Timmy and Barry suppressed their laughter. The entire scene looked pretty comical, Doug floundering, his arms flailing wildly, his glasses sliding off his sweaty nose, and his leg deep inside the ground.

  "It's not funny, guys. It hurts!"

  "Take my hand."

  Doug grasped Barry' s outstretched hand desperately, and Barry pulled him up. Fresh soil clung to his pants leg and sock. His sneaker had come off, and remained beneath the surface. There was blood on his sock.

  From deep inside the hole, something squealed. It sounded angry.

  "Jesus Christ!" Doug collapsed onto the grass and drew his wounded leg up, slowly peeling off the tattered sock. Five shallow but ragged scratches marked the flesh around his ankle and calf, as if he 'd been raked with long fingernails or claws.

  "Are you okay?" Timmy asked, concerned.

  "No, I'm not okay. I fell in a hole and something bit me. Look at my foot, man. Does it look okay? I'm bleeding."

  Barry and Timmy glanced at each other, ashamed of their initial reaction.

  "Didn't you see the hole?" Barry asked.

  "There wasn't one," Doug said. "The ground just caved in. Like it was a trap or something."

  Timmy and Barry examined the hole. It didn't look like a groundhog's den. The size was wrong. It was too big for a mole, but too small for any other type of burrowing mammal. Furthermore, it didn ' t look like it had been dug from above the ground. There was no dirt piled off to the side of the hole. It appeared to have been dug from beneath the earth, as if something had tunneled up from below, and this small portion had then collapsed. Timmy knelt by the hole. A subtle breeze blew against his cheek. He wrinkled his nose.

  "There's air down there. I can feel it on my face. But it stinks."

  "Who cares?" Doug rocked back and forth. "Look at my ankle. I could get rabies."

  "Your ankle is fine, man. Just put some Bactine on it or something."

  "But that won't stop rabies. That kills you. You foam at the mouth and stuff." Tuning him out, Timmy focused on the strange opening. The odor was terrible, but he couldn't look away.

  "You guys heard that noise, right? It didn't sound like a groundhog. I wonder what this is?"

  "Sinkhole," Barry said. "Graveyard's been full of them lately. My dad says there must be a cave or something below. We' ve had little holes like this opening all over the place. Sunken tombstones, too.

  They fall right down halfway into the ground. That squeal was probably just air rushing out."

  "Air?" Doug sighed in exasperation. "Then what bit me, you moron?" Timmy ignored them both. His mind swam with the possibilities. An underground cavern!

  Maybe even a whole network of them. If they could get inside and explore, there was no telling what they 'd find. They'd be famous. Last winter, he' d read a book about caverns, Page 41

  and had become enamored of the idea of finding a cave near their homes. It would be even cooler than the Dugout.

  He leaned closer, winced at the stench wafting up from the hole, and fanned his nose.

  "It doesn't smell like a cave. Smells like a sewer."

  "We're in a cemetery," Barry reminded him. "It's probably someone's body, decomposing and stuff."

  Timmy bolted away from the hole in disgust. For a second, he thought of his grandfather.

  Was that what was happening to him right now? He closed his eyes and tried not to think about it.

  "Oh, man," Doug moaned. "If it was a sewer or a dead person, I could get infected."

  "Look," Timmy said, "just go home and get it fixed up. If you take care of it now, you're not gonna get infected."

  "I can't go home now. Not with my foot like this. I won't be able to pedal my bike fast enough to get past Catcher."

  "Catcher." Timmy curled his fingers into fists. "Always something with Catcher. Things would be a lot easier without him."

  "Aren't you sick of that dog?" Barry asked Doug.

  "Well, sure I am. But what can I do? I told Mr. Sawyer that Catcher had been chasing me, and my mom has called him a bunch of times, and he still won' t tie him up. The dogcatcher hasn 't done anything, either. Mom says that's because he's friends with Mr. Sawyer. They hang out together down at the VFW."

  Timmy smiled. "I think it's time we took care of Catcher on our own. I'm tired of him chasing me every time I go to your house."

  "What?" Doug's eyes grew wide, his injury forgotten. "You talking about bumping him off? I don't know if I could do that."

  "No, I'm not talking about killing him. We'd get in trouble for that, man, and I don' t feel like spending the rest of the summer being grounded. But we can get even. I've been thinking about this for a while now, and I know how to take care of him. We can make sure he thinks twice before messing with any of us again." Doug stopped sniffling, put his sock back on, and stared at Timmy with interest.

  "How?"

  "Squirt guns."

  Barry snorted. "Squirt guns? Are you nuts? You nail him with water and you're just gonna piss him off even more. This is Catcher we're talking about, not a cat."

  "Yeah," Doug said. "I don't know, Timmy. I don't think Catcher is scared of a little water."

  "No." Timmy's smile grew broader. "Probably not. But I bet he's scared of vinegar."

  "Vinegar?"

  Timmy nodded. "Vinegar. Lemon juice. Stuff like that. We can get some from my mom'

 
s kitchen, put it into the guns, and nail him when he comes after Doug. He gets it in his eyes, and he 'll never chase us again. Guarantee it."

  "Gasoline," Doug said. "That would do the trick." Barry shook his head. "No, that would eat through the plastic. And besides, we don't want to kill him. Just teach him a lesson. It' s got to be lemon juice or something. Maybe mix it with vinegar."

  "So you guys up for this?" Timmy asked.

  Barry and Doug agreed that it was a good plan. They usually did, no matter what Timmy proposed. He could summon them to the Dugout and state his desire for them to travel to Mars by the end of the summer, and the boys would agree that it was a solid plan. Timmy had read Tom Sawyer when he was younger, for a fifth grade book report Page 42

  assignment, and the character ' s ability to sway others was not lost on him. He found a familiar poignancy to many of the scenes, especially the whitewashing of the fence and Tom 's ability to convince his friends to take part in his adventures, no matter how dangerous or illadvised. Timmy often secretly fancied himself a modern Tom Sawyer, with Barry and Doug as his Huckleberry Finn and Joe Harper. (Barry 's dad even fit the role of Huck' s own abusive father.) Some of the older kids listened to a band called Rush, and they had a song called "Tom Sawyer" that made him feel the same way. He didn 't understand all the lyrics, but he knew enough of them to know that it echoed his own thoughts.

  "What are you going to do about your shoe?" Barry asked Doug. "You can't limp around with just one."

  "I don't know, but I'm not putting my hand back down in that hole. Whatever it was that bit me is probably still inside."

  Timmy got down on his hands and knees and peered inside the hole. It was pitch black inside, and he couldn' t see anything but dirt. He got the impression that the crevice was deeper than it looked. Another gust of foul air drifted out, and he cringed.