Ghoul (25 page)

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.

“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.”

“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 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 them-- not 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 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 monsters-- parents 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 7-11, an old shotgun shell they'd found in the woods.

A discarded Kit-Kat 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."

“You 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 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 mid-tree.

“So Doug stopped by and worked on it,” Barry said. “Good. Now let's get out of here.”

"Don't you see? The only time he could have done this was earlier tonight. Look at this thumbprint. That's chocolate.“ He scraped at the smudge with his fingernail. ”And it 's fresh."

Agitated, Timmy pulled out the candy wrapper and sniffed. “This is fresh, too. There are still crumbs inside.”

Barry turned pale. “You don't think ... Doug was in there when ... ?”

Timmy swooned. The Kit-Kat wrapper slipped from his hand, fluttering to the ground.

He knelt, his face in his hands.

"My mom took him home when the cops were done. He'd spent the night before, so he didn't have his bike. That was around dinnertime. He would have had to come back here between then and now."

“And he would have rode his bike,” Barry said. “I don't see it here. Maybe he'd already left when this happened.”

“Maybe.” Timmy sounded unsure.

"Look, we need to get out of here, man. This is too close to the cemetery. If that thing is still around, or even if my old man is out here, we're sitting ducks. Let's at least go down into the pasture or something."

Nodding in agreement, Timmy stood up and brushed himself off. His jeans and T-shirt were filthy.

“My mom is gonna freak out if she sees this.”

“Why? It's just dirt. You get dirty all the time.”

“Yeah, but if she sees these tomorrow, she'll know I snuck out. I'll have to hide them in the bottom of the hamper.”

Timmy turned his flashlight back on, and the two of them started toward the field.

Barry's light beam flashed off something white, hidden in the weeds.

“What's that?”

He trained the flashlight on the object and it shined back in his eyes.

A reflector.

Both boys ran over to the weeds and pushed them aside. Doug's bike lay on its side, abandoned.

Timmy moaned. “Oh, no.”

“This doesn't mean he was here,” Barry said. “Not Doug. He wasn't here. He just wasn't.”

Timmy's voice was barely a whisper. "Yeah. He was. He was in the Dugout, eating a candy bar and working on the map when that thing came up out of the ground and got him."

“Not Doug. We don't know that for sure.”

“Stop it,” Timmy cried. “Just stop it, Barry. I know you're scared. I'm scared, too.”

“What are we going to do?”

Taking a deep breath, Timmy strode back to the trapdoor.

“You're going to get your old man's keys, get the backhoe out of the shed, and then start digging this whole place up.”

“I am?” Barry scoffed. “And what are you going to do?”

“I'm going down there. I'm going after Doug.”

“Yeah, right!”

“I'm serious, dude. Go get your dad's keys and start the backhoe up.”

“I'm not going back to my house. What if my old man is there?”

“Then make sure he doesn't see you.”

“No way. No freaking way, Timmy. Not on your life.”

“Barry, we've got no choice.”

"If I got the keys and if my old man didn't see me, I still can't start the backhoe.

It's nuts. Running that thing in the middle of the night? Somebody will hear us for sure, and call the cops."

“Good,” Timmy argued. “Let them. The more the merrier.”

“But a few minutes ago, you didn't want the cops here.”

"I don't care anymore. Doug is gone, man. Don't you see? Can't you get it through that thick head of yours? He's down there, right now, with that thing, and he could be hurt. For all we know, he could be dead. We can't wait any more. We don't have time to make a plan. We can't rely on the grown-ups. We have to do something now. You promised that you'd help me, so help me goddamn it."

Scowling, Barry kicked the ground. His mouth was a thin, tight line, and his bottom lip had started bleeding again. The red gash on his cheek stood out in stark contrast to his pale, moonlit skin.

“Okay. I'll do it. But you're insane, Graco.”

“No, I'm not, and neither are you. We're not the crazy ones.”

“Then who is?”

Timmy didn't respond. He simply stared at Barry, impatient.

After a moment, Barry understood what he was implying. “Oh, yeah. Them.”

“Get going,” Timmy said. "Once you get the backhoe running, just start digging everything up between here and the shed. Any place where the ground is sinking --that's where you'll want to dig. It's got to be close to four o'clock now, if not a little after that. Sun usually comes up around five-thirty. That gives us like an hour and a half or so."

"Yeah, but the sunlight isn't really shining bright until around six-thirty or seven.

What if the light isn't enough?"

Then we'll just have to go with Plan B."

“And what is Plan B?”

“Just get going.” Timmy pointed in the direction of Barry's house.

Barry stayed put. “You don't have a Plan B, do you?”

“No,” Timmy admitted. “I don't.”

Timmy stepped to the ladder's edge and peered nervously into the darkness. He took several deep breaths and then said, “Okay. Here I go.”

He didn't move. Neither did Barry. They stared at each other.

“Aren't you going?” Barry asked.

“Aren't you?”

“Yeah. I will. I just wanted to make sure you made it down safely.”

“I'll be fine,” Timmy said. “You be careful.”

“You too.”

They both continued standing still.

“You scared?” Barry asked.

Timmy nodded. "I've never been more scared in my life. But Doug is down there somewhere. We owe it to him. We owe it to ourselves. I... I need to prove to my dad that he was wrong.

Does that make sense?"

Barry glanced off into the distance. “It makes perfect sense. More than you know.”