Don't be talking shit you don't understand.

'I'm likely going to be a'

dead man because of

'you, so why don't you just keep all your fucking'

self-indulgent

(picture of a spoiled-looking kid with his lower lip stuck out)

'rationalizing bullshit'

to yourself.

Henry stared at him, shocked and stunned. When was the last time someone had talked to him that way? The answer was probably never.

'I only care about one thing,' Owen said. His face was pale and strained and exhausted. 'I want to find your Typhoid Jonesy and stop him. All right? Fuck your precious tender feelings, fuck how tired you are, and fuck you. I'm here.'

'All right,' Henry said.

'I don't need lessons in morality from a guy planning to blow his overeducated, self-indulgent brains out.'

'Okay.'

'So fuck your your mother and die.' mother and die.'

Silence inside the Humvee. Nothing from outside but the monotonous vacuum-cleaner shriek of the wind.

At last Henry said, 'Here's what we'll do. I'll fuck your your mother, then die; you fuck mother, then die; you fuck my my mother, then die. At least we'll avoid the incest taboo.' mother, then die. At least we'll avoid the incest taboo.'

Owen began to smile. Henry smiled back.

Mat're Jonesy and Mr Gray doing? Owen asked Henry. Owen asked Henry. Can you tell? Can you tell?

Henry licked at his lips. The itching in his leg had largely stopped, but his tongue tasted like an old piece of shag rug. 'No. They're cut off. Gray's responsible for that, probably. And your fearless leader? Kurtz? He's getting closer, isn't he?'

'Yeah. If we're going to maintain any kind of lead on him at all, we better make this quick.'

'Then we will.' Owen scratched the red stuff on the side of his face, looked at the bits of red that came off on his fingers, then got moving again.

Number 41, you said?

Yeah. Owen?

What?

I'm scared.

Of Duddits?

Sort of, yeah.

Why?

I don't know.'

Henry looked at Owen bleakly.

I feel like there's something wrong with him.

7

It was her after-midnight fantasy made real, and when the knock came at the door, Roberta was unable to get up. Her legs felt like water. The night was gone, but it had been replaced by a pallid, creepy morning light that wasn't much better, and they were out there, Pete and Beav, the dead ones had come for her son.

The fist fell again, booming, rattling the pictures on the walls.

One of them was a framed front page of the Derry News, News, the photo showing Duddits, his friends, and Josie Rinkenhauer, all of them with their arms around each other, all of them grinning like mad (how well Duddits had looked in that picture, how strong and normal) below a headline reading HIGH-SCHOOL CHUMS PLAY DETECTIVE, FIND MISSING GIRL. the photo showing Duddits, his friends, and Josie Rinkenhauer, all of them with their arms around each other, all of them grinning like mad (how well Duddits had looked in that picture, how strong and normal) below a headline reading HIGH-SCHOOL CHUMS PLAY DETECTIVE, FIND MISSING GIRL.

Wham! Wham! Wham!

No, she thought, she thought, I'll just sit here and eventually they'll go away, they'll have to go away, because with dead people you have to invite them in and if I just sit tight- I'll just sit here and eventually they'll go away, they'll have to go away, because with dead people you have to invite them in and if I just sit tight-

But then Duddits was running past her rocker - running, - running, when these days just walking wore him out, and his eyes were full of their old blazing brightness, such good boys they had been and such happiness they had brought him, but now they were when these days just walking wore him out, and his eyes were full of their old blazing brightness, such good boys they had been and such happiness they had brought him, but now they were dead, dead, they had come to him through the storm and they were they had come to him through the storm and they were dead- dead-

'Duddie, no!' she screamed, but he paid her no attention. He rushed past that old framed picture - Duddits Cavell on the front page, Duddits Cavell a hero, would wonders never cease - and she heard what he was shouting just as he opened the door on the dying storm: she screamed, but he paid her no attention. He rushed past that old framed picture - Duddits Cavell on the front page, Duddits Cavell a hero, would wonders never cease - and she heard what he was shouting just as he opened the door on the dying storm:

'Ennie! Ennie! ENNIE!'

8

Henry opened his mouth - to say what he never knew, because nothing came out. He was thunderstruck, dumbstruck. This wasn't Duddits, couldn't be - it was some sickly uncle or older brother, pale and apparently bald beneath his pushed-back Red Sox cap. There was stubble on his cheeks, crusts of blood around his nostrils, and deep dark circles beneath his eyes. And yet-

'Ennie! Ennie! Ennie!'

The tall, pale stranger in the doorway threw himself into Henry's arms with all of Duddie's old extravagance, knocking him backward on the snowy step not by force of his weight - he was as light as milkweed fluff - but simply because Henry was unprepared for the assault. If Owen hadn't steadied him, he and Duddits would have gone tumbling into the snow.

'Ennie! Ennie!'

Laughing. Crying. Covering him with those big old Duddits smackeroos. Deep in the storehouse of his memory, Beaver Clarendon whispered, If you guys tell anybody he did that If you guys tell anybody he did that . . . And Jonesy: . . . And Jonesy: Yeah, yeah, you'll never chum with us again, ya fuckin wank. Yeah, yeah, you'll never chum with us again, ya fuckin wank. It was Duddits, all right, kissing Henry's byrus-speckled cheeks . . . but the pallor on It was Duddits, all right, kissing Henry's byrus-speckled cheeks . . . but the pallor on Duddits's Duddits's cheeks, what was that? He was so thin - no, beyond thin, cheeks, what was that? He was so thin - no, beyond thin, gaunt - gaunt - and what was that? The blood in his nostrils, the smell drifting off his skin . . . not the smell that had been coming from Becky Shue, not the smell of the overgrown cabin, but a deathly smell just the same. and what was that? The blood in his nostrils, the smell drifting off his skin . . . not the smell that had been coming from Becky Shue, not the smell of the overgrown cabin, but a deathly smell just the same.

And here was Roberta, standing in the hall beside a photograph of Duddits and Alfie at the Derry Days carnival, riding the carousel, dwarfing their wild-eyed plastic horses and laughing.

Didn't go to Alfie's funeral, but sent a card, Henry thought, and loathed himself Henry thought, and loathed himself

She was wringing her hands together, her eyes full of tears, and although she had put on weight at breast and hip, although her hair was now almost entirely gray, it was her, she was still she, but Duddits . . . oh boy, Duddits Duddits . . . . . .

Henry looked at her, his arms wrapped around the old friend who was still crying his name. He patted at Duddits's shoulder blade. It felt insubstantial beneath his palm, as fragile as the bone in a bird's wing.

'Roberta,' he said. 'Roberta, my God! What's wrong with him?'