Stories

10

Inside the hotel, Mrs. Hardie looked at him curiously but told him Don Wanderley's room number and then watched him as he climbed the steps at the end of the lobby. He knew that he should have turned around to say something, but he could not trust himself, after the strain of riding back to town with Mrs. Draeger, to make even the most perfunctory conversation with Jim's mother.

He found Don's door and knocked.

"Mr. Wanderley," he said when the writer opened the door.

For Don, the appearance of the shaken teenager outside his room meant the arrival of certainty. The period when the consequences of the final Chowder Society story-whatever that would turn out to be- were limited to its members and a few outlyers was over. The expression of shock and loss on Peter Barnes's face told Don that what he had been brooding about in his room was no longer the property of himself and four elderly men.

"Come in, Peter," he said. "I thought we'd be meeting again soon."

The boy moved like a zombie into the room and sat blindly in a chair. "I'm sorry," he began, and then closed his mouth. "I want-I have to-" He blinked, and was obviously unable to continue.

"Hang on," Don said, and went to his dresser and took out a bottle of whiskey. He poured an inch into a water glass and gave it to Peter. "Drink some of this and settle down. Then just tell me everything that happened. Don't waste time thinking that I might not believe you, because I will. And so will Mr. Hawthorne and Mr. James, when I tell them."

" 'My older friends,' " Peter said. He swallowed some of the whiskey. "That's what he called them. He said you thought his name was Greg Benton."

Peter twitched, uttering the name, and Don felt the shock of a conviction hitting his nerves: whatever the danger to himself, he would destroy Greg Benton.

"You met him," he said.

"He killed my mother," Peter said flatly. "His brother held me and made me watch. I think-I think they drank her blood. Like they did to those animals. And he killed Jim Hardie. I saw him do it, but I got away."

"Go on," Don said.

"And he said someone-I can't remember his name -would call him a Manitou. Do you know what that is?"

"I've heard of it."

Peter nodded, as if this satisfied him. "And he turned into a wolf. I saw him. I saw him do it." Peter set the glass down on the floor, then looked at it again and picked it up and took another sip. His hands trembled badly enough nearly to splash the whiskey over the lip of the glass. "They stink-they're like rotten dead things-I had to scrub and scrub. Where Fenny touched me."

"You saw Benton turn into a wolf?"

"Yes. Well, no. Not exactly. He took off his glasses. They have yellow eyes. He let me see him. He was- he was nothing but hate and death. He was like a laser beam."

"I understand," Don said. "I've seen him. But I never saw him without his glasses."

"When he takes them off, he can make you do things. He can talk inside your head. Like ESP. And they can make you see dead people, ghosts, but when you touch them, they sort of blow up. But they don't blow up. They grab you and they kill you. But they're dead too. Somebody else owns them-their benefactor. They do what she wants."

"She?" Don asked, and remembered a lovely woman holding this handsome boy's chin at a dinner party.

"That Anna Mostyn," Peter said. "But she was here before."

"Yes, she was," Don said. "As an actress."

Peter looked at him with grateful surprise.

"I just figured out some of the story, Peter," Don said. "Just in the past few days." He looked at the shivering boy in the chair. "It looks like you figured out a lot more than I did and in a shorter time."

"He said he was me," Peter said, his face distorting. "He said he was me, I want to kill him."

"Then we'll do it together," Don said.

"They're here because I'm here," Don told him. "Ricky Hawthorne said that when I joined him and Sears and Lewis Benedikt, that we brought these things -these beings-into focus. That we gathered them here. Maybe if I had stayed away, there'd just be a few dead sheep or cows or something, and that would be that. But that was never a possibility, Peter. I couldn't stay away-and they knew I would have to come. And now they can do anything they want."

Peter interrupted him. "Anything she wants them to do."

"That's right. But we're not helpless. We can fight back. And we'll do it. We'll get rid of them however we can. That's a promise."

"But they're already dead," Peter said. "How can we kill them? I know they're dead-they have that smell-"

He was beginning to slide into panic again, and Don reached over and took his hand. "I know because of the stories. These things aren't new. They've probably been around for centuries-for longer than that. They've certainly been talked about and written about for hundreds of years. I think they are what people used to call vampires and werewolves-they're probably behind a thousand ghost stories. Well, in the stories, and I think that means in the past, people found ways to make them die again. Stakes through the heart or silver bullets -remember? The point is that they can be destroyed. And if it takes silver bullets, that's what we'll use. But I don't think we'll need them. You want revenge and I do too, and we'll get it."

"But that's just them," Peter said, looking straight at Don. "What do we do about her?"

"That'll be harder. She's the general. But history is full of dead generals." It was a facile answer, but the boy seemed calmer. "Now I think you'd better tell me everything, Peter. Begin with how Jim died, if that's the beginning. The more you remember, the more you'll help us. So try to tell it all."

"Why didn't you tell anyone else about this?" he asked when Peter was done.

"Because I knew no one would believe me but you. You heard the music."

Don nodded.

"And nobody will, will they? They'll think it's like Mr. Scales and the Martians."

"Not quite. The Chowder Society will. I hope."

"You mean Mr. James and Mr. Hawthorne and…"

"Yes." He and the boy looked at each other, knowing that Lewis was dead. "We'll be enough, Peter. It's the four of us against her."

"When do we start? What do we do?"

"I'll meet with the others tonight. I think you ought to go home. You have to see your father."

"He won't believe me. I know he won't. Nobody would, unless they…" The boy's voice trailed off.

"Do you want me to come with you?"

Peter shook his head.

"I will if you want me to."

"No. I won't tell him. It wouldn't do any good. I'll have to tell him later."

"Maybe that's better. And if you want help when the times comes, I'll give it to you. Peter, I think you've been brave as hell. Most adults would have folded up like tissue paper. But you're going to have to be even braver from now on. You might have to protect your father as well as yourself. Don't open your door to anybody unless you know who they are."

Peter nodded. "I wont. You bet I won't. But why are they here, anyhow? Why is she here?"

"That's what I'm going to find out tonight."

Peter stood up and began to leave, but when he put his hands in his pockets, he touched a folded pamphlet. "I forgot. The man in the blue car gave me this after he took me to Mr. Benedict's house." He brought out The Watchtower and smoothed it out on Don's desk. Beneath the name, in large black letters on the cheap pulpy paper, were the words DR. RABBITFOOT LED ME TO SIN.

Don ripped the pamphlet in half.