The room was no Buckingham Palace, but it would do for now. The rest of his conversation with Mullins earlier in the day had been pretty cut-and-dry, mostly tying up loose ends: "Cody Natter's dealing PCP?" he asked in disbelief. "Here in Crick City?"

"That's right," Mullins said. "And that's why I need you, 'cos you got experience. Besides, I ain't got no one else."

This comment didn't exactly make Phil feel like Cop of the Year, but he could see Mullins' point. "So what about my rep with Metro?" he asked.

"You resigned, you were never charged. I don't give a s.h.i.t what's on your record there. Just don't pop any more kids with quads."

"Wait a minute, Chief," Phil felt obliged. "Let's get one thing clear: I never shot anyone with quads or any other illegal ammo. It was a frame. Some guy named Dign.a.z.io set me up because he wanted my job. h.e.l.l, the only caps I popped were over the kid's head. It was Dign.a.z.io who shot the kid with quads, then he made it look like it was me."

"Yeah, right," Mullins rushed. "Whatever."

"You don't believe me, do you?"

"'Course I believe ya," the chief said, smiling. "And even if you did it, I don't care. What, I'm supposed to give a rat's a.s.s that you snuffed some p.i.s.sant ghetto kid who was spotting for a PCP lab? You ask me, they should've given you a medal. Only thing I know is I got Cody Natter pushing the same s.h.i.t in my town, and if I don't take care of it, you and me'll both be punching the night clock at the bedsheet factory. So do you want the job or not?"

"Yes," Phil said without even thinking. But he didn't really even need to think. The peanuts pay here was still more than he made as a guard, and at least he'd be a cop again.

But it wasn't so much the job as the issue. Phil had a big problem with drugs. In the city, he'd seen what the stuff did to people, to their bodies, their minds, their whole lives. It was the most integral evil he'd ever imagined. They sold the s.h.i.t to 6-year-olds on the playground, for G.o.d's sake. The younger they got them hooked, the better, then they'd have the kids robbing liquor stores or turning tricks on the street. It was an industry that perpetuated slavery, and the G.o.dd.a.m.n courts seemed more concerned with the rights of the dealers than the innocent lives they destroyed. Crack, heroin, PCP-take your pick. They were all different but all the same, all part of the same machine that preyed on people's weaknesses and used them up until there was nothing left. PCP in particular. They cut the s.h.i.t with industrial solvents to make it cheaper; each drag caused brain damage, made you crazy. Phil thought if he could ever do anything useful in his life, it would be sending these evil motherf.u.c.kers to the joint for life. And here was Mullins, offering him another chance...

"Yeah," Phil repeated. "I'll take the job. When do you want me to start?"

"Right now," Mullins said, pouring more rank coffee into his NRA mug.

"Chief, I can't just walk off my security job. I gotta give my boss some notice."

"f.u.c.k him. I'm your boss now. Tell him to hire some other monkey for that no-d.i.c.k job. I need you here more than he needs you guarding yarn."

"All right, but my apartment's over forty miles away. You have to give me some time to find a closer place to live."

"I already found you a place. Old Lady Crane, you remember her? The old bag's still got that hole-in-the-wall boardinghouse out off the Route, and she's holding a room for you. Thirty-five clams a week-you think you can swing that, Daddy Warbucks? And I already paid your first month's rent. So quit jacking your jaws and get out of here. Go load up that piece of s.h.i.t you got for a car and get moved in tonight. I'm putting you on eight-to-eights, the night shift, and I'll even pay you overtime for anything over forty until I can get a couple more men hired on."

Phil felt winded. "Chief, we're moving way too fast, aren't we? First off, I need clearance from the state training academy, don't I?"

"You're already cleared through Metro."

"And I need uniforms, I need a piece, I need-"

Mullins pointed to the corner. "See that big box sitting there? Those are your uniforms. And see that little box sitting on top of it? That's your service revolver." Mullins got something out of his desk drawer. "And see this teensy weensy box right here?"

Phil took the little box from Mullins' fingers, opened it, and removed its contents: A brand new Bianchi police badge.

"There's your f.u.c.kin' tin," Mullins finished. "You're a big bad policeman again. We'll send in your new print cards to the state tomorrow. Only other thing I need from you is a pa.s.sport photo for your department ID, and you're all set."

"Christ, Chief." The badge flashed in Phil's hand bright as 24-carat gold.

"Now s.h.a.g a.s.s out of here and get your s.h.i.t squared away," Mullins remarked, unconsciously flipping through last year's Sw.a.n.k calendar. "Can't you see I've got work to do?"

Phil picked up the boxes and headed for the door. "Okay, Chief. See you tomorrow."

"Yeah. Oh, and one more thing."

Phil turned.

Mullins' mustached lip twitched up in a smile. "It's good to have you back...Sergeant Straker."

Sergeant Straker, the words drifted. He was staring out the window now, of the tiny room in Old Lady Crane's boardinghouse that was suddenly his home. Yeah, Sergeant Straker, back in the tin...

Outside looked strange-trees and fields and hills instead of skysc.r.a.pers and traffic. Cricket sounds instead of sirens. Pine air instead of smog. Crick City was abed, and the night bloomed in a kind of beauty he'd forgotten even existed. Maybe this won't be so bad, he considered.

Or was that just wishful thinking?

Because when Phil went to sleep, he dreamed...

He dreamed of his childhood.

And the vague, half-seen horrors of The House.

Yes, sir, sooner or later, Gut thought, we'se gonna pick the wrong folks to razz...

Scott-Boy crumpled his empty beer can, tossed it out, and cracked open another. They could go through a case a night, no problem, healthy young livers and const.i.tutions and all. But Gut was nursing his.

"What's buggin' you?" Scott inquired, never one to sit calm whiles his only razzin' buddy displayed signs of psychic distress. "You done look plumb et up with a case of the blahs tonight, Gut."

"Aw, it's nothin'. Just feelin' a tad spotty's all."

"Well, we'se sh.o.r.e gonna put a fixin' to that right soon enough. Coupla bad razzers like us, we gots it all, ya know? Good beer, good set of wheels, plus laters on we'll both have ourselfs a horse-choke-size wad of cash in each our pockets after we're done with our run. Yes, sir. We'se plumb got it made."

"Uh, yeah," Gut replied with little enthusiasm. But then he decided it couldn't hurt to air his feelings. He felt weird tonight, he felt really bad. "But I'se been thinkin', Scott-Boy. Like maybe sooner or later we'se gonna pick the wrong folks to razz."

"Sheee-it!" Scott whooped. "Yeah, and if worms had guns, birds wouldn't f.u.c.k with 'em! Ain't no one on the good earth with a pair bra.s.s enough to take us on. We're bad razzin' fellas, Gut. Ain't no one can touch us. Why-I'll show ya! Just lookit this!" And then Scott-Boy shucked his daddy's big Webley .455 and c.o.c.ked that sucker.

Scott-Boy laughed, guzzlin' his brew, and givin' his crotch a rub now and again on account of the idea of killing gave him as much spark in the loins as seeing a real looker in the buff or a nice big joggly set of milkers, but Gut still had that low sicklike feeling way down deep in his belly. The feeling deepened as he drove the truck on down the road. The moon went right along with them over the trees, kind of funny-colored and not quite full, and there weren't a cloud in the sky, just a big glittery bunch of stars, and the harder Gut looked into them stars, the worse he felt.

He just didn't feel like killin' anyone tonight.

"Scott-Boy, look, I really don't feel up to a good razz right now. I means like we'se got that run ta make soon. So why don't we do somethin' quick, like buy us some wh.o.r.es or somethin'?"

"'Cos, Gut, see, I already told ya, there ain't no kick to that. That's like drinkin' Yoo-Hoo instead of the good beer like we'se always drink," Scott explained, and cracked open another one. "Can't have no fun unless we'se into the really groaty hobk.n.o.bbin', ya know? And why waste time? We ain't due fer the pick up fer a good spell, so let's have us a hoot till then."

"Uh, yeah," Gut came back. He could see there was no point; once Scott "Scott-Boy" Tuckton had his mind set, there weren't no swayin' him. And what Scott meant by "groaty hobk.n.o.bbin" was his usual kind of razz, the kinky, down 'n' dirty kind like he was used to. The really wild, un-Christian kind of stuff like the time they did the job on that old lady walkin' on crutches, or that time last summer when they'se spotted that gal in the wheelchair waitin' fer that special bus at the junction, and they stopped and just throwed her in the back of the truck and droved off to one of their fave-urt clearings back in the woods, and Scott-Boy did all kinds of rowdy things to that poor gal 'fore he got ta snuffin' her. That's what Scott meant by groaty hobk.n.o.bbin'. That's what gave him his biggest kick: the really pree-verted stuff.

And that gave Gut an idea.

Yeah, pre-versions. Some really plumb bad, down 'n dirty groaty hobk.n.o.bbin'...

It was something he'd heard about since he was little, something about the Creekers. His daddy'd tell him about it when he was on a drunk which was most ever night, yeah, stories about this place the Creekers had way on back in the woods where a fella could buy hisself a Creeker woman, and these Creeker gals, they'se were all f.u.c.ked up an' deformed an all, and it was a place where a fella could go fer some really groaty hobk.n.o.bbin'. 'Course, Gut hisself hadn't seen many Creekers ever, and as for this Creeker wh.o.r.ehouse, well, he didn't know if the place really existed at all, like maybe it was just a bunch of s.h.i.t his daddy was spoutin' ta scare him, but if Gut could sell Scott-Boy on the idea of tryin' ta find the place, then they wouldn't have ta kill no one tonight, and that sounded just fine to Gut 'cos he still had this really bad feelin' 'bout killin' right now, and that feelin' was a'growin' in his belly like that time he et some bad squirrel pie, and he was just sick as a dog fer two weeks. So Gut just then, he decided to make his pitch: "Say, Scott-Boy, ya know, fer longer than I can remember I been hearin' stories 'bout some really wild wh.o.r.ehouse back up the boonies somewhere, but this wh.o.r.ehouse, see, it's different from the reg-lar kind 'cos they say it's a Creeker wh.o.r.ehouse where the gals have funny-shaped heads and a couple more t.i.ts than they'se supposed ta and f.u.c.ked-up stuff like that, and I mean I bet if we found it we'se could have us a real rowdy time, some real groaty hobk.n.o.bbin' like we'se never had before, don't'cha think?"

"Aw now, Gut," Scott dismissed, "I heard them stories too since I was a kid, and it's just a load of horseflop, and I ain't seen me five Creekers in my whole life I bet. So quit tryin' ta spoil my night of razzin'. There ain't no Creekers, and there sh.o.r.e's s.h.i.t ain't no Creeker wh.o.r.ehouse."

That idea sh.o.r.e went bust, Gut concluded. He couldn't even reckon where he was drivin'; he just cruised down one road after the next while Scott-Boy chugged more beer. The moon kept followin' him, flashin' at him through the straggly trees like an eye blinkin'. Then: "Hot-d.a.m.n," Scott-Boy leaned forward and whispered. "You see what I see, Gut?"

Gut saw her, all right. Some chick walkin' along the Old Dunwich just as fast as her legs'd carry her, wearin' some real ratty clothes, and she never turned as the big truck approached, not hitchhiking but just walking, and it was kind of creepy, her just walkin' along with that funny colored moon hangin' over her.

And Scott snickered. "We'se gonna pluck us this one."

Gut groaned in his mind, that low feeling in his belly getting hot. He pulled the truck up just ahead of her and stopped, and Scott-Boy was out lickety-split. He cracked her a good one upside the head with the bra.s.s knucks and just as quick was hauling her into the truck, and then Gut was stepping on it again just like that, like maybe five seconds was all it took to pluck her off the road.

"Oooo-yeah-mama!" Scott-Boy exclaimed. "I just knowed we was gonna find ourselfs some splittail tonight." He was pushing the barely conscious girl down into the footwell, giving her a few slaps on the head, and he was just laughing away as usual, all riled up now. "Yeah, Gut, let's git off this road right quick 'cos I gots ta slip into this skinny b.i.t.c.h 'fore my p.e.c.k.e.r busts, ya know?"

"Uh, yeah," Gut nearly moaned. Up a spell came a dirt turn-off they'd used fer razzin' in the past. Scott-Boy turned on the dome light, saying, "Let's have us a gander first," and he was hauling her up between them as Gut parked in the moonlit clearing. The girl was still out of it from the shot with the bra.s.s knucks; her head just kind of lolled like she had no neckbone. But they got a good gander as Scott-Boy got to pulling them ratty duds off her. She had a decent body on her, and a good sized set of milkers fer a chick so skinny, but kinda limp, straggly black hair, and- "Jaysus!" Scott-Boy exclaimed.

Gut saw it, too. This gal, she had some weirdnesses about her, like, first, she didn't have no bellyb.u.t.ton, and she had six fingers on her left hand and not but three on her right. She was fully hairless on her plot, too. But that weren't the cause of Scott-Boy's exclamation. It was her face...

"Jiminy Peter, Gut. You believe this?"

This girl, her face looked kinda lopsided. A kind of smushed nose, and one ear lower than the other, and that dog-dirty black hair hangin' over a forehead that looked really queer and round. But queerer still were her eyes.

"Gander them eyes," Scott-Boy whispered.

They was real big, but one was surely bigger than the other and higher on her head, and the eyes too were a real funny reddish color almost like blood. Gut had never in his life seed eyes this color on anyone.

"Gut, this sh.o.r.e is the f.u.c.ked-upest gal I ever seen," Scott-Boy observed.

"She's a inbred."

"A what?"

"A inbred, Scott-Boy. Like what I was talkin' 'bout before. This here's a Creeker."

Scott-Boy's face became a study in fascination. "You know, I never seen me one up close like this. How they get theirselfs so f.u.c.ked up?"

"Kromerzomes," Gut answered. "My daddy told me alls about it once. We all gots these things in us called kromerzomes and genes-"

"You means like Levi's?"

"No, Scott-Boy, I'm talkin' 'bout some other kinda gene, and these things are real fragile-like. And what happens is, see, these dirt-poor families of hillfolk livin' way up the boonies, they get to doin' the bop with everyone, fathers knockin' up their daughters like it was nothin', and brothers gettin' together with their sisters, and mothers gettin' pregged up by their sons over and over for a long time. And what happens is the genes and kromerzornes get messed up, and the kids come out all wrong like this here gal. And they calls 'em Creekers."

"Creekers," Scott murmured, gazing at the girl. "Ain't this a kick?"

The girl began to rouse, making strange noises that sounded like "allup, allup, allup-harup." And those big red eyes of hers seemed to be looking up without seeing much of anything, and Gut, in his undeniable erudition, explained, "And most Creekers are real slow in the head on account of their brain's all f.u.c.ked up, too. Can't barely talk, most of them, and those that can just mumble like they'se got their yaps full of backer. It's 'cos they're Creekers is why they're so s.h.i.t-stupid."

Then the girl's twisted mouth began to work, and she blinked those big red eyes and jabbered, "Skeet-inner, come no-hurt."

"What's that, girlie?" Scott mockingly asked. He guffawed and slapped her in the face. "What'choo sayin'?"

"Skeet-inner," she said.

"Yeah, she's stupider than dogs.h.i.t, all right," Scott-Boy determined, grinning in the dome light. He began to take his pants down. "Got a big cooze on her too, don't she? Sheee-it, I'm gonna blow me a dandy of a nut up them there works, I am. 'Fact I'll blow me several, feisty as my dog's been of late."

Gut felt even s.h.i.ttier now. He figured this Creeker gal had enough problems, but he didn't dare raise the suggestion that they let her go. Scott-Boy's intent was plain as barn paint, and once he got his dog up, there was no gettin' it down. h.e.l.l, Gut had even seen him do it with some sheep up on Miller's pasture a couple times they couldn't find no gals to razz. "A nut's a nut, hail," he'd said and then got to it. Gut felt sorry for the sheep.

And Gut surely felt sorry for this gal right now. Scott pushed her on her back, not even needing to w.a.n.k a little to get his dog hard. The gal just lay there on the bench seat, blinking her big lopsided red eyes every now and again, and then Scott-Boy pushed her legs apart. "Gut, how's 'bout waitin' outside on account there ain't room fer the three of us, huh? I wants ta f.u.c.k with her some and fire me a coupla nuts up this bald p.u.s.s.y of hers. Then you can take a turn if ya want, 'fore we kill her."

"Uh, yeah," Gut obliged, and he sh.o.r.e didn't have no trouble obliging. He could razz with the best of 'em, but he didn't want no part of this. Just weren't natural to be doin' it with a Creeker. So he moseyed around the clearing, finished his beer, and chucked the can. He could hear Scott whooping it up fierce in the pickup. Sheee-it, he thought morosely. He knew Scott-Boy real well, and knew how his head worked, and he figured that the girl's deformities added a lot of extra spark to Scott's razz.

Groaty hobk.n.o.bbin, he mused. Jaysus...

He looked around the grove, up at the moon, up at the sky. He didn't want to think about what was going on in the truck, but it was a spot hard not to. Scott kept the dome light on, and Gut couldn't help but catch a few ganders. He could see the Creeker gal's funny feet sticking up, then he could see her head hangin' out the window as Scott-Boy turned her over and gave it to her in the behind. Then she started pukin', and Scott-Boy was just laughing away and slapping her around and all in the truck. "Got's ta get rid of this dog-dirty hair so's we can see yer purdy face, jabberpuss," he was saying, and then he started cutting her dirty coal-black hair off with his buck, right close to the scalp and throwing it all around and laughing it up real good, and this poor Creeker gal looked a sight when he was done, just tufts of sc.r.a.p sticking up on her big, c.o.c.keyed head.

Gut sat down on a stump to wait. Hurry it up, Scott-Boy, he thought. We got a run to make later. These dust dealers they drove for, they wouldn't take too kindly to he and Scott bein' late, but 'acorse that was really just an excuse, bein' late fer the run. He wanted to get out of here was all. The low, sicklike feelin' in his breadbasket was still there, not just from what Scott was doin' to this poor Creeker gal, but from a bit of everything. The whole night just had a bad feel to it.

"Ah-no-save-me!" he thought he heard the girl shriek from the cab. "Ona-prey-bee!"

Who knew what the gal was tryin' to say. h.e.l.l, she probably didn't know herself, so et up she was with the messed up kromerzomes. Gut guessed it must've been some scientist fella named Kromer who discovered 'em. These kromerzomes, see, was so deller-kit, if families hobk.n.o.bbed together long enough over generations there never weren't no babies born right. No, none at all. 'Least, that's what his daddy'd told him.

"Ah-no! Lep! Evernd! Peese! Ona!" the gal wailed.

Scott's whooping voice echoed through the grove. "Hot d.a.m.n, Gut! This is a reg-lar hoot, this is! This splittail's box is sh.o.r.e somethin'!"

Uh, yeah, Gut thought. He was fidgetin' like he had ants on him, the bad feel of the night or the cryptic whispers of the augurs of ancient Rome. He got back up then and began to pace about the moonlit dell, and every time he glanced toward the truck all he could see was Scott-Boy's devil-grinnin' face whiles he continued to put serious blocks to this Creeker gal, and then Scott was guffawing, "Oh yessiree bob, I'm gonna blow me a nut so dandy it'll be squirtin' out this jabberin' b.i.t.c.h's f.u.c.ked-up ears, it will!"

"Hey, Scott-Boy?" Gut feebly called out. "Hurrys it up, how 'bout. We got that run to make, don't ferget."

But Scott-Boy, so busy he was just then, didn't even hear what Gut had said.

The augural thickened; Gut was sweating now, itching and rubbing his face in some unnamed dread, and the pickup truck was rockin', and the Creeker chick still jabberin' away whiles Scott-Boy set to bangin' her warped head bam bam bam! against the door a country mile a minute, and suddenly-inexplicably-Gut felt a fear like he couldn't 'magine, and he ducked behind a tree for no reason he could really put a name to, and that was when Scott-Boy started screamin'...

In an eye's wink, big, quick-moving shadows were crunching around the pickup, and Scott-Boy, he was screaming right away-it didn't even really sound human, like the sound Cage George's 'Cuda made that time he was red-lining it and the oil pump went-and next off, another pickup truck was pulling up in the grove, not from the road but from a dirt lane in the woods, only this pickup was real old and beat to s.h.i.t, with real dim headlights, and then these shadows was dragging Scott-Boy out of the truck, and he was still screaming b.l.o.o.d.y murder. Other shadows took the Creeker gal out and then carried her to the truck with the real dim lights, but dim as these lights was, Gut could also see Scott-Boy and what happened to him to get him screaming like that Keeeeee-riiist...

Scott-Boy had no works left at all 'tween his legs, just a crotch-full of blood pouring like a faucet. One of them shadows had cut Scott's dog and bag clean off, and Scott was still screaming and flailing away in the dirt as several of these big shadows got to holding him down, and one of them was smack smack smack! bringing a tire iron or something down fast and hard on Scott-Boy's arms and legs, breakin' bones like they was pencils, and another shadow whipped out a buck bigger than Gut had ever seed in his life and started scalping Scott-Boy alive right then and there.

More of that Creeker jabber shot up into the grove, only this weren't the gal, these were guys by the sound of 'em: "Ah-no-prey-bee!"

"Ah-no-for-blood!"

"Skeet-inner this one!"

"Ona!"

But then there was another voice Gut coulda swore he heard, but, see, he seemed to hear it in his head instead of his ears, and what he heard was this: Redeemer Sanctifier, bless us...

Ah-no ah-no!

To thee we bring this gift of flesh...

Ona!