"No I didn't! I said he asked me for the time!"

"All right, Jamie-perhaps we should continue this later, you seem upset today."

"Ain't upset!"

Dr. McDevitt turned off the machine. A clap of thunder, a sudden power surge ended the tape there. The lights had come back on immediately, to reveal Jamie huddled on the floor. The doctor knelt beside him; he heard quite clearly: "Let me be dead.

"Let me be dead.

"Let me be dead."

Hawkes Island, Delaware March 1965 Let me be dead. Jamie lay on the floor of the secret room in the cave. His bones brittle from the cold, he shook uncontrollably, his teeth chattering so hard his jaws hurt. The back of his head, his shoulders ached from being slammed up against the wall of the cave, being pinned by the throat.

Let me be dead.

The pain was incredible. The wound in his throat burned like he'd been scalded with acid; somehow that acid had entered his bloodstream and seemed to be gnawing his blood vessels, his very heart....

The worst was the memory of the cold greedy mouth on his neck, the sickening crunching noise as the fangs drove through his flesh, the sensation of being eaten alive, the small inhuman sounds of satisfaction It made-as hard as his heart had been pumping, it wasn't enough-the suction left a bruise from his jaw to his collarbone.

It happened as fast as lightning.... It seemed to take forever....

Jamie didn't expect to live through it, and now he was so sorry he had....

He had dropped to his knees and vomited when the Thing released him and the vomit in his bruised, swollen throat almost choked him. Then he keeled over on his side, and now lay quivering and panting like a half-killed rabbit before a beast of prey.

He had his eyes shut tight, but water gushed from them. It was so cold. It was so cold....

Let me be dead.

If he were dead he would no longer see those red eyes glaring up at him from the coffin. He'd been so lucky, he'd thought, to stumble on the boulder, so obviously blocking an entrance ... he'd taken little notice of the ancient symbol painted on the rock ... X marks the spot, he'd thought, and when he levered the boulder to the side, and the X became a cross, he still did not guess.... Lucky he'd brought his tools with him-the chest was full of coins, the old lock rusted...

And the chained coffin ... obviously containing something valuable, he gloated...

For who would chain a coffin...?

Then there was that moment when the universe had shifted for Jamie, when he pried open the lid-for a spilt second his mind had fumbled for a word, he wanted a word, there was a word- Then the iron grip seized him and it was too late. And faster than was humanly possible, he was slammed against the wall.

The horror of the moment, when It grasped his hair, pulled back his head, and he realized what was happening... this is really happening ... his eyes grew heavy, as the Vampire's saliva drugged him into compliance, lessened coagulates in his bloodstream, entered his nervous system to attack the mu receptors ... Jamie's pain tolerance was destroyed in seconds, never to return.

Then, after, It let him fall, as if disgusted.... Jamie didn't want to wake. He wanted to be dead. "What is the year?"

Oh, G.o.d ... It could speak ... and had a voice like Death....

The year? What year? What did It mean? Jamie's mind raced almost incoherently. "N-n-nineteen s-s-sixty-five." he heard himself sob, surprised to find he could answer, finding it impossible not to.

"Nineteen hundred and sixty-five?"

Suddenly It grabbed him by the upper arm, jerking him to his feet, strode out of the cave, dragging Jamie behind as easily as if he were a rag doll. The inhuman strength ... Jamie stumbled over small monuments, the headstones of some long-forgotten cemetery, b.u.mping from one to another, scrambling to keep on his feet. The smell of rotting leaves, mildew, age-old sorrows ... death.

It went swiftly through the old graveyard, not glancing at the tombstones, Jamie stumbling and gasping in Its wake.

It stopped in the clearing at the edge of the cemetery, Jamie's sobbing breath the only sound.... The frigid dew soaked through his socks. Bone-chilled, exhausted, crazed, he could barely raise his head.

Down below the windswept hill, the lights of Hawkes Harbor sparkled on the edge of the sea, like a cl.u.s.ter of stars in the night. The Thing stood silent.

Jamie would have fallen, weak from loss of blood, and shock, but It held him-his arm would be black with bruises for days.

Jamie's heart skipped wildly when It turned to him. He saw It clearly for the first time. Tall, gaunt, and silver-skinned, the dark and depthless eyes ... and perhaps the most grotesque thing of all... still... a human face...

"And in 1965-do the Hawkes still rule Hawkes Harbor?" In the few remaining minutes before the dawn, the Vampire's many questions answered, the best that Jamie could, It left him, the final sentence p.r.o.nounced: "This coming night I will summon you. And you will obey."

Jamie stumbled out to a grotesque dawn in Hawkes Harbor, to find what an ugly, harsh thing sunlight was, what a hideous sound the seagulls made.

The ocean made him nauseous.

When he found himself back at the boardinghouse, somehow, delirious, twisting in his bed, he kept begging, "Don't let it be dark. Don't let it be dark. Don't let it be dark."

He would have begged for death, but he knew It wouldn't let him be dead.

Terrace View Asylum, Delaware August 1967 "Are you feeling better today, Jamie?"

"Yeah. I don't know what happened. I ain't usually scared of storms."

"Let's see-you got sick at the boardinghouse and Kell Quinn called a doctor. Is that correct?

"Yeah. Kell thought I'd been out on a spree or something....

("Good G.o.d, lad, you look like death! I've searched every bar and wh.o.r.ehouse for a hundred miles around.... Jamie, look at me, boy! What's happened to you?") "But I hadn't. I was just sick. You know, Doc, laying there sick like that, I got to thinking what my life had been like.

How I'd never amounted to much, some of the f.u.c.ked-up stuff I'd done."

"Your illness made you remorseful?"

"Yeah. I wanted to start again, somehow-atone."

"Atone?"

"Yeah. If I could atone there was hope ... I made up my mind, I was going to change, when I went to work for Grenville."

"That's when you met Mr. Hawkes?"

"Yeah. His car broke down on the road. He hired me when I fixed it. I had nowhere else to go."

Hawkes Harbor, Delaware February 1965 "But why do you need to leave here, Jamie?"

"I told ya, Trish. I'm going to be working at Hawkes Hall now."

"I still don't know why you have to live there."

"It's part of the deal. Room and board."

"Well... Jamie? Did you know you're shaking?"

"Yeah. I need a drink. Go on, scram, I can't get things done...."

Back in the boardinghouse, packing to leave it forever, Jamie looked out the window, at the blank, black wall where the future used to be. Nothing. No hope, no nothing, but that voice in his brain. "I'm comin'," he muttered. "I hear you."

He paused on the outside landing, looking across the harbor where the land was darker than night. A small light, like a tiny star on a vast black sky flickered.

He was so frightened ... the black tide was rising swiftly around him, pulling him into dark waters.... What's going to happen now?

The summons was stronger now, impatient, and Jamie could smell in the cold sea wind the faint stench of the tomb.

Oh yeah, I hear you.

He went swiftly down the steps, took the road to the harbor, the dark path to the bridge. As he walked faster, leaving the lights of town behind, he suddenly remembered the word he'd wished for, when he'd opened the coffin and realized what he'd done ...

Oh G.o.d, he breathed. G.o.d. G.o.d. G.o.d.

But it wasn't G.o.d who waited.

New Job Terrace View Asylum, Delaware October 1967 Dr. McDevitt noticed a few new behaviors in Jamie after his last session. He began showing up at mail call, loitering at the edge of eager patients. He could be found on the front-porch lounge every visiting day, anxiously studying each arriving car.

Then finally one day Lee called out, "Mail for Jamie Sommers."

"You're looking well today," Dr. McDevitt said at that same day's session.

"Yeah. I got a letter from Grenville. I had a feeling I was gonna get one, after he visited last week."

"He did?" The doctor knew very well he hadn't-he kept careful records of all the visitors. "I'm sorry I missed him."

"Yeah. But he came late-night Thursday. You weren't here."

The only occurrence out of the usual that happened Thursday evening was some sort of wild animal or bird coming through the opened window of the patients'

lounge-Lee had told him it had taken several hours and a major dispensing of sedatives to calm everyone back down.

The doctor only nodded at Jamie's news.

"I'm very glad to hear it. I hope all's well in Hawkes Harbor."

"Well, I don't know about that, but he's got quite a few ch.o.r.es lined up for me when I get out."

Dr. McDevitt looked at his notes, and carefully loosed his grip on his pencil.

"I see." "I was thinking maybe he forgot all about me. Didn't need me anymore."

"You enjoyed working for him, then?"

"Well... it was a little rocky at first. He's one of the colonial Brits, they're real used to servants, and he's kinda eccentric. Strict. Made me nervous I wasn't doing stuff right."

"Yes. So he's British?"

"Yeah, but from Singapore. You can tell the accent's a little weird. Funny, when I went to Boston that time with Kell, I hadn't been in the States in years. I'd forgot how Americans think they're the center of the world.

But to tell you the truth, no matter what off-the-map little h.e.l.lhole, there's some Brit there, drinking his tea and reading his Shakespeare."

"Could I have an example of his ... 'eccentricity'?"

Jamie paused for a moment. "He had me trapping rats."

"Around his house? That doesn't sound too odd."

"Well, there was a bunch swarming Hawkes Hall when we moved in. But he didn't want me to kill them. I had to use live traps."

"Must have a profound regard for life."

"Yeah. He likes them live."

Jamie fell silent. He brought out his letter-looked up at Dr. McDevitt and grinned.

"You know, Grenville trusted me with money. Even Kellen never did that. He sent me out to buy a car."

"I'm sure you were trustworthy at that point." "Oh yeah ..." Jamie looked at his note again. "And he doesn't like ... lights."

Hawkes Hall, Hawkes Harbor, Delaware March 1965 It hated electricity-"That fool, Franklin, look what he has wrought."

Jamie, facing life in the derelict Hawkes Hall, thought the G.o.dd.a.m.n Vampire was f.u.c.king nuts sometimes.

Resigned, he made up his mind to lanterns, candles, firewood.

In other ways, It wasn't stupid. Pretty d.a.m.n smart, in fact. It took an inventory of the things It needed and instructed Jamie in how to acquire them.

Within a few weeks, Grenville Hawkes had a new wardrobe- tailor-made at great expense. He'd been an officer in the French and Indian Wars, he chose a military haircut, as becoming an ex-soldier, Jamie doing the best he could. The Vampire had once been a handsome man-and even now, with the shadowed eyes and unhealthy pallor, his height and commanding presence might seem attractive.

Jamie guessed Its age-not counting the time It had spent in the coffin-at close to fifty.

It bought Hawkes Hall.

The property had been listed since World War II; local economy remained depressed, then the death of the realtor, lack of interest, the persistent rumors-all seemed combined to keep the property abandoned.

The Hawkeses themselves had given up on it. They had been pleasantly surprised to find a buyer-some sort of relative?-and too pleased at the cash offer, to make any resistance. They could use a little cash at the moment, and could tell each other solemnly that it was only right to keep the island in the family. And after all, who would have the rundown old place ... except a daft Englishman? He intended to restore it, so his story went, history was his hobby. Yes, he was quite knowledgeable in antiques. Early American, actually, was a specialty, having always been intrigued by the family stories of the American Hawkes...

Numismatics was more than a hobby; it had rivaled his dealings in trade as a source of income. Now, semiretired, still recovering from a tropical fever, there was more than time to indulge these interests-in a better climate, Singapore not the healthiest of places. And more than enough money...

The Hawkeses responded politely in the beginning.

Had him to dinner. Richard showed him around the property. Lydia had him to tea. Then they shut their doors.