A wh.o.r.e, Phil thought as he walked out of the station.

I dumped her, and she turned into a strip-joint wh.o.r.e...

Eight.

It was a fascinating sound, a slick wet clicking, like duct tape being pulled off something tacky.

The world seemed to hum in his head: glories, wonders.

Mishmash words ricocheted in his brain. My poor brethren, he thought. I bless thee in thy error. I love thee...

Ah-no-prey-bee!

Skeet-inner!

Ah-no, slave-luss!

He watched, in reverence, in faith. What an honor to behold sights such as this... He felt heady and warm. He felt exuberant. The flesh of the world... My G.o.d, we are blessed...

That slick, wet sound resumed. Colors glittered, contrast flashed. It was just so beautiful! Red running over white.

His eyes turned to the window, to the sky.

And the wet sounds continued.

Soon, the Reverend thought. His heart burned like an ember, an ember of love, a hot, glowing ingot of molten truth.

Yes. Soon it will be time again...

He was a little boy. Bugs buzzed at his face, some of them sinking stingers. Dead branches and leaves crunched beneath his blacktop Keds as the sun blistered through the trees.

He didn't feel good. At school, Miss Cunningham mentioned that a real bad flu from China was going around. I won't get it, he remembered thinking. I'm not Chinese.

But his skin felt cold in spite of the drenching heat. His stomach felt dry-he'd thrown up earlier, hadn't he?-and he knew it must be the stuffed peppers his aunt served for dinner last night. He hated stuffed peppers. Why couldn't they eat Pop Tarts every night instead? The cinnamon kind were great, and the strawberry kind with the white icing...

He didn't want to go home. He didn't want to believe he was sick. I'm not sick, he convinced himself. I don't have any Chinese flu! So on he marched, wandering as children do in a pent-up glee, in a curiosity that was as honest as it was without direction of any kind. This gully here, he'd played in with his G.I. Joes. And over here by the stump that looked wide as a manhole cover, he and Dave "Cave" Houseman had shot at Nehi bottles with the BB gun that Cave had borrowed from Eagle. And they'd hit plenty of the bottles.

His Keds crunched on. He didn't know where he was going, and he didn't care. One night he'd stayed over at Eagle's house, to watch the Alfred Hitchc.o.c.k show, and a lady on TV had killed someone with a frozen leg of lamb. And Eagle's Uncle Frank had come in-he built houses-and said to never go in the woods because there were "things" in the woods that ten-year-olds shouldn't see. So naturally the next day he and Eagle Peters had gone into the woods, which they did almost every day from then on. One time they'd found a warm can of Miller beer, and they even drank it once they found what Uncle Frank called the churchkey. Another time they found a dead cat behind Buckingham Elementary, and the cat's belly was moving from a bunch of worms that got in it. And then there was another time they found a big dark-green plastic bag full of moldy magazines, only these magazines had lots of pictures of naked ladies in them, and they laughed because it reminded them of a show called Naked City. One of the ladies was pouring honey between another lady's legs, then she was licking it off! In another magazine a lady was sticking a gun in another lady's hole. And after that she was sticking cuc.u.mbers and bananas and things in her. And in one other magazine there was a caption that said "WENDY LIKES TO SUCK," and that reminded them of the song they heard all the time, called "Wendy," or was it "Windy"? The lady had a black man's thing in her mouth!

He and Eagle roamed the woods whenever they could, but they never found the "things" that Uncle Frank said ten-year-olds shouldn't see.

"Uncle Frank said a girl got raked out here once," Eagle told him one day when they were shooting slingshots at bottles by the creek. "He said it said so in the paper."

"A girl got raked? What's that?"

Eagle seemed to know everything, and, as he lined up his next shot-at a Briardale Cola bottle-he spoke like it was nothing.

"It's when a man puts his pee-er in a lady, and she doesn't want to."

This confused him. "Why would a man want to do that?

"'Cos it feels good, stupid. Don't you know anything? He squirts baby-juice in her, and it feels good."

"Oh... What's baby-juice?"

Eagle laughed. "You're stupider than Larry on the Three Stooges! Baby-juice is the stuff that comes out a man's pee-er when he puts it in a lady. It makes 'em have babies. But when rake-ists do it, they do other things too." Eagle pulled the slingshot back. "Bad things."

This made him wonder. When Eagle hit the Briardale Cola bottle, it exploded. "What bad things?" he asked Eagle.

They called him Eagle because he had blond hair, but his father always made him get a crewcut, so he looked like a bald eagle. And Eagle said, "Well, they beat the ladies up too, and sometimes they kill 'em."

Something bloomed in the little boy's head, a curiosity like the time he broke his arm, and it itched under the plaster so bad he stuck one of his aunt's knitting needles up there to scratch it. When Doc Smith took the cast off, he cried 'cos the doctor did it with a little saw that sounded worse than Doc Verib's dentist drill. And when the cast fell away, his arm was covered with white flakes, and all the hairs on his arm had turned blacker than Lisa Cottergim's eyebrows. She was an Oriental girl who got 'dopted by her parents, and her pretty eyebrows were blacker than a crow's feathers. Maybe she was Chinese, and that's why they had this Chinese flu going around that his teacher had told him about. But, anyway, Doc Smith told him his hairs turned black only 'cos the plaster had covered the hairs from the sun for six weeks. And anyway something itched in his head just like the way his skin itched under the cast.

"What kind of...bad things?" he asked.

Eagle hogged the next shot at one of his G.I. Joes that had busted 'cos a rubber band broke inside and made his head fall off. "Like really bad things," he said. His eye opened behind the rock. "Like this lady? After the man squirted a lot of baby-juice in her peehole, he squirted some in her b.u.t.t, too-"

"He did not!" the little boy exclaimed, appalled.

"Yes he did, 'cos I heard my dad and Uncle Frank talking about it one night they thought I was asleep. They were watching Naked City and talking about the lady who got raked. And the rake-ist squirted baby-juice up the lady's b.u.t.t, too, and then..."

"What!" the little boy nearly shrieked.

"Then he tied her to a tree and hit her with a monkey wrench, and then he stuck the monkey wrench up her peehole. And after that-" Eagle seemed to pause, like he did when he was making something up- "he hit her in the head with a rake and kilt her."

"With a rake? Why?"

"Why?" Eagle laughed at him again. "Because that's what rake-ist's do, stupid. That's why they call it rake."

The little boy wondered about this. It didn't make sense. "But why would a man ever want to do that to a lady?"

"Don't really know," Eagle said. "But Uncle Frank said there was lots of folks in the world who were sick in the head, and I guess that's why. And, anyway, Big Chief Mullins 'vester-gated the rake, and he told the papers it was a Creeker who done it."

Creeker, the little boy thought. He let Eagle hog another shot 'cos he was too busy thinking. Creeker...

The word slid down his belly hot and ugly and worse than his aunt's stuffed peppers, and even worse than her corned beef and cabbage with the lumpy tomato sauce that he hated even more. He'd heard a little bit about the Creekers, just little bits. No one talked about 'em much, like they was some bad secret or something, or like the way n.o.body ever talked much about Mrs. Nixerman, who got sick in the head and would run around buck naked at night with her big fat bubs flapping. She had to go to a special hospital in Crownsville that was only for people who were sick in the head. But even though he'd heard a little bit about Creekers, he asked Eagle anyway, 'cos he figured Eagle might know more. And that's what fascinated the little boy, like about the rake-ist, and the "things" in the woods, and all that.

He wanted to know.

"What's a Creeker?" he asked.

"Aw, you're stupider than Larry and Shemp!" Eagle guffawed. "A Creeker is someone who got born by their father or brother's baby-juice. And there's somethin' about it-I'm not sure what-but if a father like puts his pee-er in his daughter and squirts his baby-juice in her peehole, the baby comes out all wrong. And the same if a mother lets her son squirt his baby-juice in her. Uncle Frank said it's 'cos you're not supposed to do it, and G.o.d gets so mad, he makes the babies come out wrong."

Wrong, the little boy thought. It slid down his gut just like the word Creeker, and just like his aunt's corned beef and cabbage and the stuffed peppers. "How you mean...wrong?"

The headless, naked G.I. Joe took Eagle's rock right in the chest, and pieces of plastic flew everywhere- WHAP!.

"The babies come out like the hippie, peacenik babies Uncle Frank told me about. These hippies take LSD and it messes up a man's baby-juice, and it makes the babies real ugly and wrong. Same as Creekers. They'se just hillfolk who only squirt their juice into their reller-tives. And their babies get, like, real big heads like a fishbowl and giant red eyes that are crooked, and ten fingers on each hand instead of five. And girl Creekers sometimes had extra bubs and nipples like a hog and stuff. Sometimes they get born without no arms or legs, so the Creeker fathers kill 'em. They eat 'em."

"They do not!" the little boy wailed.

"Sh.o.r.e they do, 'cos Uncle Frank told me. And lots of 'em got teeth like Kevin Furman's bulldog."

The little boy shuddered. He wasn't feeling too good to begin with-on account of his aunt's stuffed peppers, he was sure-but this made him feel even worse. 'Cos Kevin Furman's bulldog Pepper had the gnarliest, ugliest yellow teeth, and he couldn't imagine anything scarier than a person with those same kind of teeth in their mouth...

'Cos there wasn't nothing uglier than Kevin Furman's bulldog.

"And there's something worse," Eagle said, lining up the next hogged shot.

"What?"

"I don't know if I should tell ya, 'cos you'd probably cry like a baby.

Eagle missed the next target, a big dead toad they'd found by the creek. But one time Dave Houseman told them his friend Mike Cutt would take live toads and shoot 'em with the slingshot, and he'd even play baseball with live toads. He'd swing the bat, and the toad's guts would spray way out. And the little boy couldn't think of anything grosser. And then Eagle continued, "the Creekers, you know, they got their own wh.o.r.ehouse out here somewhere."

"What's-" the little boy gulped. "-what's a...wh.o.r.ehouse?"

Eagle rolled his eyes. His next shot, too, missed the big, dead toad. "It's a place where men pay money to squirt their juice into ladies, ya moe-ron. Don't ya know nuthin'? And sometimes the wh.o.r.es put a man's pee-er in their mouths and let 'em squirt their baby-juice there-"

"In their mouths?" the little boy shrieked.

"That's right, in their mouths too, not just their peeholes. But anyway, I heard Uncle Frank and my dad talkin' 'bout it one night, and the Creekers have a special wh.o.r.ehouse, where men can pay to squirt their juice into Creeker ladies, like the kind I was tellin' you about who are all messed up and wrong and gross-looking and have big heads and ten fingers on each hand..."

And teeth like Kevin Furman's dog, the little boy remembered.

SPLAT!.

The little boy looked up. Eagle had finally hit the big dead toad with the slingshot.

The toad's insides splattered everywhere, in a wormy red mist.

That day Eagle had gone on to say that this Creeker wh.o.r.ehouse was supposed to be a secret. n.o.body talked much about it just like they didn't talk much about Mrs. Nixerman. Not just any man could go there-'cos it was special-but only men who were friends with the Creekers. This all fascinated the little boy. That ladies-they were called wh.o.r.es-would let a man do these things to 'em for money, and 'specially Creeker ladies...

But now the curiosity itched, much much worse than the way his skin itched under Doc Smith's plaster cast.

The next day Eagle got grounded by his dad, for beating up his brothers Ricky and Billy 'cos Ricky and Billy had called him "bald eagle," and only Eagle's friends were allowed to call him that.

But the little boy still itched with curiosity, with the innocent quest for knowledge. He wanted to see...the "things" Uncle Frank had talked about.

So for the whole time Eagle was grounded the little boy wandered around the woods anyway. Right after school. Sometimes he'd stop by the police station and say hi to Big Chief Mullins, who chewed gross-out tobacco but seemed like a very nice man, and sometimes he'd give him licorice sticks; he even offered him a "chaw" once but the little boy didn't want to put that stuff in his mouth.

Summers made the town-his entire world, in fact-a wonderful, lazy dreamland. School was out; he did his paper route in the mornings, mowed lawns in the afternoon, and sometimes Big Chief Mullins would pay him a few dollars to wash the police cars or clean up the station. Most of his money he gave to his aunt, to help out with the bills, but in the summer he always had some left for c.o.kes and models. And when his work was done, he'd wander.

In the woods.

Maybe Eagle's Uncle Frank was just kidding them. So far he hadn't even come close to finding the "things." There probably aren't any, he thought one day, trudging through the wooded hills up behind the creek. Probably just said it to scare us...

But why would Uncle Frank do that?

It was mid-August, and the hottest day of the year. His belly didn't feel right that day. "Too much of that ice cream," his aunt told him that morning when he got back from his route, but he knew better. It was those stuffed peppers she'd served again last night. But like most ten-year-olds, he wasn't about to let a bellyache keep him cooped up at home. He felt even worse mowing that day's lawns; a couple times he thought he might upchuck. Mrs. Young would fire me for sure, he thought, puking stuffed peppers on her lawn! He should've stayed home when he was done, but he couldn't help it. Bad as his belly felt, after he'd cleaned up the mower and put it back in the shed, he headed for the woods.

He crossed the rushing creek, carefully stepping on the stones he and Eagle had thrown in last year. Some green slimy stuff had grown on some of them-he had to be careful. Clumps of frog eggs clung to sticks in the water, and on the bank he almost stepped on a big brown snapping turtle he thought was a pile of mud. Uncle Frank said they'd bite your fingers off if you got too close. On the bank, he kicked over a log. Two fat shiny salamanders sat there, and they had yellow spots, which was neat. But his heart jumped when he kicked over another log: a nest of baby snakes slithered in the damp spot, six of them, but to him it looked like a hundred. And they were brown with tiny diamond heads. Harmless in reality-they were just hognose snakes-but to a ten-year-old boy, any brown snake was surely a copperhead.

He scaled the embankment up a fallen tree, then pushed into the woods. Eech! he thought when he also pushed through a sticky spiderweb suspended invisibly between two trees. Several trails branched out (he and Eagle hadn't taken all of them) so he took the one to the far left and just started walking...

Maybe one of the trails would lead to the "things."

He couldn't imagine exactly what kind of things Uncle Frank meant. Maybe he'd find more of those moldy magazines that had pictures of naked ladies. Or maybe- His heart jumped again.

Maybe I'll find a lady who's been raked, he fretted.

He hoped not. What would he do? And what would he do with the rake? Take it to Big Chief Mullins?

The sun blazed through the trees; sweat dripped in his eyes, and his T-shirt stuck to him. He pa.s.sed another creek he'd never seen before and was suddenly swarmed by mosquitoes, and when he tried to run on he-SPLAT!-accidentally stepped on a big toad. Aw, gross! he thought. The toad's plump body burst under his shoe like a baggie full of pudding.

The bugs were biting him all over, and the harder the August sun beat down, the worse he felt. Not just his belly now, but his throat was hurting too, and his head felt stuffed up, and there were a couple more times he thought he might upchuck. I'm never eating those stuffed peppers again, he vowed to himself. Ever!

After another twenty minutes his belly got to feeling real bad. This is stupid, he thought. There aren't no things in the woods. Uncle Frank's full of dog p.o.o.p! And just as he was ready to turn around and go back home, something snapped. A branch? he wondered.

He stood still.

Then he heard a voice: "You. Hey."

Another branch snapped. Behind him.

His eyes darted around. It was a lady's voice, he could tell, but it sounded sort of...funny. Sort of like the way his aunt sounded on Friday nights when she drank out of that big bottle of wine she kept in the icebox.

"Wha'choo fer lookin', ah? Lost ya?"

At first he couldn't see her; the old stained sundress she wore blended right in with the woods. But then she seemed to appear like magic while he squinted toward the direction of the voice. A girl stood a few yards away between two trees. She had real black straight hair, but it was all kind of mussed up in her face, and she wasn't wearing any shoes, and her legs looked real dirty. She stood there a bit looking at him through her hair, and when he took a few curious steps, she took a few too and suddenly the sun was on her. She looked older, like maybe twelve or thirteen, 'cos she had little bubs pushing against the top of her dress like most of the sixth-grade girls had at school, and he could even see little buds poking through! "Bub-buds," Dave the Cave called them. "t.i.ttie buds. Milk comes out of 'em when ya suck 'em." Milk? That sounded pretty silly. Why would milk be in a girl's bubs, he remembered thinking, when you can get it right out of the icebox? But that was a while ago when the Cave had told him that, and it didn't matter now. He could see this girl's buds real good because her dress top was all stuck to her with sweat just like his Green Hornet T-shirt. He could tell he liked her, though, even though she was all dirty and all, and her messy hair was hanging in her face. Yeah, he could tell he liked her, and he could tell she was pretty. And there was one other thing he could tell: Hillfolk! he realized. She's a hill girl. Probably lives in a shack somewhere. Probably doesn't even go to school...

"Hi-yuh, ya," she said, and black strands of hair hanging over her mouth sort of puffed out when she spoke. "What's-er-yer name, er-ya?"

He squinted at her, not quite sure what she'd said. "Uh, Phil," he said. "Phil Straker. What's yours?"

"Dawnie, me." She glanced around, like maybe she was nervous about something. "I'm me name Dawnie, me," and there her hair went again, puff-puff-puff.