He said nothing.

I just shuffled amiably around the vast room and pretended to be interested in a variety of things.

"Is there something wrong?" I heard him ask worriedly. "Did I do something wrong?"

"No, no, no, Robby," I said. "Of course not. I was just admiring your room."

"But, um, why?"

"You're very . . . lucky."

"I am?"

I hated the way he asked that. "Yeah, I mean, you should be grateful for all the things you have," I said. "You're a fortunate kid."

Wearily, slumped over, his arms at his sides, he looked around the room, unimpressed. "They're just things, Bret."

"I mean all I ever wanted was a TV and a lock on my door." I made a superficial gesture with my hand. "All I wanted to do was play with Legos."

I stared at the mobile of planets hanging in the middle of the room-the universe floating below the star-studded ceiling. The satellites in orbit, the rockets and astronauts, the s.p.a.ceships and moon rocks and Mars and the fiery meteorite heading toward Earth and the concerns about extraterrestrial sightings and the need to establish colonies throughout the solar system. It all seemed horribly useless to me because the sky was always black in s.p.a.ce and there was no sound on the moon and it was another world where you would always be lost. But I knew that Robby would argue that far beneath its freezing craters and treacherous sand-blown surfaces lay a warm and yielding heart. It took only two and a half seconds for a laser to flash from Earth to the moon and back again, as Robby had told me at that wedding in Nashville so many years ago.

"Yeah, I guess an astronaut," he said.

"Okay, that's cool," I said. "I think that's a cool costume."

I finally noticed the helmet on the bed and the accompanying orange NASA suit hanging on a hook in the closet. "I'll see you downstairs, bud."

Robby kept staring at me until I left the room and closed the door behind me. I flinched when I heard it lock. A sconce flickered as I walked past it.

8. halloween

It was sweltering-the warmest October 31 on record-but having grown up in Los Angeles I was used to this weather, even though Jayne and the kids were sweating by the time we reached the end of the block. Robby had already taken off his helmet, his hair matted wet, and hooked up with Ashton Allen, who dissed the idea of going as a famous baseball player once the gay rumors surfaced, and whose parents, Mitch.e.l.l and Nadine, now joined us along with their younger daughter, Zoe, who was trick-or-treating with Sarah and their guardian for the evening, Marta. (Zoe was Hermione Granger and, yes, Sarah was Posh Spice, complete with a T-shirt that read MY BOYFRIEND THINKS I'M STUDYING MY BOYFRIEND THINKS I'M STUDYING.) The two boys would wait on the sidewalk and then inspect their sisters' treats before deciding to hit that particular house or not. I was drunk.

As we walked through the neighborhood I idly recognized the costumes from various video games (boys dressed as Shadow Phoenix Ninja and Mortal Kombat Scorpion) and movies (Anakin Skywalkers with Jedi hair braids wielding light sabers) while Harry Potters roamed Elsinore Lane everywhere you looked-wearing Quidditch robes, and they held broomsticks and magic wands, and there were green lightning bolt scars on their foreheads that glowed in the darkness as they chatted up a number of bloated ogres that I recognized as Shreks. There were no ballerinas or witches or hobos or ghosts-none of the simple homemade costumes from my childhood-and I was getting old and when I saw Nadine take a swig from the bottle of Fiji water she was carrying I suddenly craved another drink badly. Sarah kept running ahead of everyone, gyrating, while Zoe and Marta tried to keep up, and the four parents kept calling out to their children to stay in sight. There was collective murmuring about why there were so many cars this year-a long, slow-moving stream of them-with costumed kids meekly piling out and running up to the houses and then clambering back into the parade of SUVs that filled the lane. A quiet hesitancy hovered over everything. It was another reminder of the missing boys, and Nadine noted that there were more flashlights than usual and happier-looking jack-o'-lanterns (this was supposed to be an upbeat Halloween). I tried to listen attentively as a zombie pedaled past me on a bike, glaring. Jayne held a digital camera that sometimes she used but mostly didn't. We ran into Mark and Sheila Huntington, an attractive duo made up of hard edges, as well as Adam and Mimi Gardner-both couples neighbors of ours as well as invitees to the Allens' dinner on Sunday. As we watched our children move from house to house I noticed how apprehensive everyone seemed, and how lame our attempts at masking it were. People murmured about taking the kids over to North Hill this year, even though none of the missing boys came from our general vicinity. And I noticed how quiet it was, as if no one wanted to attract any unwanted attention from the stranger lurking in the shadows. Someone walked up to Jayne and asked for her autograph.

I couldn't concentrate on the conversation the various couples were having (the cat that meditated, the healthy mult.i.tasking) because I had the feeling that we were being followed-or, more accurately, that I was. I tried blaming it on the lack of sleep, the bottle of wine, the halfhearted realizations in Dr. Kim's office, my failure to find the jeans from the night before with the leftover c.o.ke in them, the s.e.xual frustration, the boy who had lied to me in my office that afternoon.

But I saw the car again.

The cream-colored 450 SL was gliding down Elsinore Lane and came to a stop at Bedford Street. I just stared helplessly as it sat there, idling, and I tried distracting myself by figuring out when I could go to Los Angeles next week. The eight adults, now walking in pairs along the sidewalk, were moving toward it. Suddenly-and in retrospect I don't know why-I asked Jayne for the digital camera. While commiserating with Mitch.e.l.l about the new In-N-Out Burger that was opening on Main Street, she handed it to me. I looked through it and aimed it at the Mercedes. The light from the lampposts was ridiculously bright and washed out everything, making it hard to focus. I couldn't understand why the car no longer seemed innocent, and why it was beginning-after just two sightings-to mean mean something; something dark, a reminder of something black. As I walked closer, zooming in on its trunk and then the rear window, it seemed as if the car itself sensed my interest and-as if something; something dark, a reminder of something black. As I walked closer, zooming in on its trunk and then the rear window, it seemed as if the car itself sensed my interest and-as if it it made the decision and not the driver-turned off Elsinore and disappeared down Bedford. I was in a haze. I felt haunted, and then there was a hot wind and the barely audible hum of what sounded like electrical equipment, and I was shivering. My heartbeat accelerated, and then, inexplicably, I felt sorrow. The moon was giant that night, hanging low in the black sky, and orange-tinted, and people kept commenting on how close to the earth it seemed. made the decision and not the driver-turned off Elsinore and disappeared down Bedford. I was in a haze. I felt haunted, and then there was a hot wind and the barely audible hum of what sounded like electrical equipment, and I was shivering. My heartbeat accelerated, and then, inexplicably, I felt sorrow. The moon was giant that night, hanging low in the black sky, and orange-tinted, and people kept commenting on how close to the earth it seemed.

Jayne was explaining to the fascinated parents why she had to go to Toronto next week when I suddenly had to excuse myself. I simply said I was tired. The pavement was wobbling beneath me and my skin was alive with perspiration. Jayne was about to say something when she saw Sarah attempt a cartwheel and yelled out for her to be careful. I said goodbye to everybody, a.s.sured the Allens that we were looking forward to Sunday night and then handed Jayne the camera. I knew that leaving was not a smart play but I had no choice but to go with it. I noted her ambivalence and dissatisfaction and headed back toward the house, which was dark, except for the jack-o'-lanterns, whose faces were already caving in. I could still feel Robby's relief when I stumbled away.

In my office I poured myself a large gla.s.s of vodka and wandered outside onto the deck overlooking the lit pool and the backyard and the wide expanse of field leading to the woods. The trees looked black and twisted beneath the orange light of the moon. I sipped the vodka. I wondered: Were the strange lights flickering in the low gray sky that people had reported seeing back in June somehow connected to the disappearance of the boys, which began around the same time? The other explanations I came up with made me hope so.

Something pa.s.sed over me and then flew away.

Suddenly Victor rushed out of the house and was standing near me, barking and panting. He was facing in the direction of the woods.

"Shut up," I said tiredly. "Just shut up."

He looked at me worriedly and then sat down with a whimper.

I tried to relax, feeling the hot wind on my skin, but my eyes were drawn to something lying next to the Jacuzzi, which I also noted was bubbling-someone had turned on the jets-and steam was rising off the heated water. I set my drink on the barbecue and moved hesitantly across the deck until I was standing over a pair of swimming trunks. I a.s.sumed the trunks were something left over from the party but when I picked them up they were soaked, as if someone had just climbed out of the Jacuzzi and removed them. And then I noted the patterns on the shorts: large, abstract red flowers. Hawaii suddenly was flying through my mind and it landed at the Mauna Kea Hotel, the resort my family stayed at when I was a kid. Are these mine? I asked myself silently, because I had once owned a pair (as did my father), yet almost immediately knew that the answer was no. I calmly wrung out the trunks and draped them over the deck banister to dry. I sipped my drink and then took a deep swallow. I breathed in and looked back into the woods.

The night was drenched with darkness and the darkness really was dazzling. And the sound of the wind seemed amplified, and I noticed that Victor was standing up again and staring out into the woods, the hot wind ruffling his golden coat. I just kept staring into the blackness of the woods, drawn toward the darkness as I always had been. And the wind rushed up against me and the wind felt . . .

. . . feral . . .

There was no other word for it. The wind felt feral.

"h.e.l.lo darkness my old friend . . ." The lyric drifted into my thoughts and I felt as if a boundary were being erased. I closed my eyes. I suddenly realized how alone I was. (But this is how you travel, the wind whispered back, the wind whispered back, this is how you've always lived. this is how you've always lived.) I opened my eyes when a moth landed on my arm. It looked as if the entire world were dying and turning black. The darkness was eclipsing everything.

And then Victor started barking-much more insistently this time, shaking as he stared out at the woods, and his barking was soon interspersed with growls. And, just as suddenly, he stopped.

He stood still. He had heard something.

He kept looking into the woods.

And then he leapt off the deck and ran toward them, barking again.

"Victor," I called out.

I could see his shadow loping along the field as if he was chasing something and he was still barking, but when he entered the woods the barking stopped.

I sipped my drink and decided to wait for him to come back.

I looked at the bathing suit. I thought about the Mercedes cruising down Elsinore Lane. How long had it been following us? Who had been in the Jacuzzi?

And then I thought I saw Victor. A shape, low and hunched over, had emerged from the woods but I couldn't make out what it was. It was the size of Victor, perhaps larger, but its movements were spiderlike as it lurched grotesquely sideways, clumsily darting in and out of the trees at the edge of the woods.

"Victor!" I called again.

The thing stopped moving for a moment. And then its dark shape scuttled sideways and picked up speed and it began shambling back into the woods. I realized, sickeningly, that it looked as if it was hunting something.

"Victor!"

I heard what sounded like squeals of despair coming from the dog but they stopped abruptly and there was only silence.

I waited.

Squinting, I could make out Victor's bulk as he slowly walked back across the field and I couldn't help feeling weak with relief when the dog-now eerily calm-moved past me and into the kitchen. But then something forced me to understand that I was not alone out here.

Can you feel me? it asked. it asked.

"Go away," I whispered. I was too f.u.c.ked up to deal with this. "Go away . . ."

It was time you learned something, I could hear it moaning. I could hear it moaning.

I was not alone.

And whatever was out there knew who I was.

Something was moving in the woods again.

The swings on the swing set began rattling in a sulfurous rush of hot winds and then, almost immediately, they stopped swinging.

I could hear the soft, snapping sounds of something approaching. And it was moving eagerly. It wanted to be noticed. It wanted to be seen and felt. It wanted to whisper my name. It wanted to deceive me. But it wasn't making itself visible yet. And as I kept peering into the darkness, I saw another figure hurrying across the field, grasping what looked like a pitchfork. I stood immobilized on the deck. My teeth had started chattering. The wind gusted again. And then there was the sound of locusts swarming. I started shaking. I'm scared, I suddenly thought. When it sensed how frightened I was, there was a strange odor in the air.

Get inside, I told myself. Get inside the house now.

But when I looked back at the house I knew it couldn't protect me from what was out there. Whatever it was could get in.

And then I saw the headstone. It was off to the side at the edge of our yard, and it sat at a crooked angle, jutting up from the weeds that blanketed the field, and my momentary annoyance that the decorators hadn't carted it off turned to dread as I found myself unable to stop moving toward it. The ground beneath the headstone was burst apart-as if something buried there had clawed its way out. Over the roar of the wind I could hear an oddly distinct flapping sound. As I moved toward the headstone I felt convinced that something had actually crawled out of that fake grave. Something huge and black was pa.s.sing over the house-it was flying-and then it spun around in midair and it was suddenly beneath me and the wind kept howling and there was briefly the snarl of animals fighting in the woods and then the thing began circling above me as I knelt in front of the headstone next to the hole in the ground. There was something written on it. I started brushing the fake moss and cobwebs aside. The headstone was streaked with dried blood.

And scrawled on it in red letters was ROBERT MARTIN ELLIS 19411992 The wind knocked me off-balance and I fell backwards.

The field was damp and spongy and as I tried to stand up I slipped on a large wet patch of dirt. But when I put a hand down to steady myself it wasn't wetness I felt but something viscous and slimy that smelled dank and I kept trying to stand up because something was getting closer to me. The wind slammed the kitchen doors shut. Whatever was approaching me was hungry. It was pitiful. It was awesome. It needed something I didn't want to give. I shouted out as I finally lifted myself up and lunged toward the house. Whatever was behind me kept shambling forward, its arms outstretched and grasping.

Once inside, I ran into the guest room and locked myself in it.

I waited desperately for Jayne and the kids to get home.

When they returned I made sure all the doors to the house were locked and that the various alarms were set. I pretended to be interested in Sarah's candy. Jayne ignored me. Robby barely looked my way before climbing the stairs to his room.

Back in the guest room, drinking from the magnum of vodka, I kept thinking one thing, just two words.

He's back.

SAt.u.r.dAY, NOVEMBER 1.

9. outside

I woke up in the guest room to the sound of a leaf blower, and when I peered out the window (the gardener's flatbed truck in the driveway a reminder that it was Sat.u.r.day) I felt momentarily okay about things until I realized I was fully clothed (not a good sign) and had no recollection of how I fell asleep last night (ditto), which morphed into a spasm of anxiety. I immediately swung my legs off the bed, knocking over the bottle of vodka I had bought the previous night-but it was empty (another bad sign). Yet the Ketel One suggested that my fear was the result of a hangover and nothing else-I was safe, I was alive, I was okay. I had a mixed response, however, to the jumbo Slurpee cup I kept hidden under the bed and which now sat on the nightstand half-filled with urine, meaning I had been too intoxicated to make it to the guest bathroom a few feet away from the guest bed in the middle of the night but not so intoxicated that I was unable to direct the stream carefully into the cup and not onto the beige carpet, so it came down to: okay, peed into jumbo Slurpee cup and not on rug-plus or minus? I walked quickly to the guest room door and made sure I'd locked it before pa.s.sing out. And the usual morning anxiety dissipated slightly when I realized I had in fact locked the door, which meant that Jayne wouldn't have been able to check on me (pa.s.sed out, reeking of vodka, a cup filled with my urine by the side of the bed). But the anxiety returned when I realized that she probably hadn't even tried. woke up in the guest room to the sound of a leaf blower, and when I peered out the window (the gardener's flatbed truck in the driveway a reminder that it was Sat.u.r.day) I felt momentarily okay about things until I realized I was fully clothed (not a good sign) and had no recollection of how I fell asleep last night (ditto), which morphed into a spasm of anxiety. I immediately swung my legs off the bed, knocking over the bottle of vodka I had bought the previous night-but it was empty (another bad sign). Yet the Ketel One suggested that my fear was the result of a hangover and nothing else-I was safe, I was alive, I was okay. I had a mixed response, however, to the jumbo Slurpee cup I kept hidden under the bed and which now sat on the nightstand half-filled with urine, meaning I had been too intoxicated to make it to the guest bathroom a few feet away from the guest bed in the middle of the night but not so intoxicated that I was unable to direct the stream carefully into the cup and not onto the beige carpet, so it came down to: okay, peed into jumbo Slurpee cup and not on rug-plus or minus? I walked quickly to the guest room door and made sure I'd locked it before pa.s.sing out. And the usual morning anxiety dissipated slightly when I realized I had in fact locked the door, which meant that Jayne wouldn't have been able to check on me (pa.s.sed out, reeking of vodka, a cup filled with my urine by the side of the bed). But the anxiety returned when I realized that she probably hadn't even tried.

I carried the cup carefully toward the kitchen (forgetting to pour out its contents in the guest bathroom), again noticing the darkened carpet beneath my feet as I pa.s.sed through the living room-the beige now bordering on a faint green, and s.h.a.ggier (first reaction: the carpet is growing growing). Rosa was vacuuming, running the Hoover over one spot in particular. I gingerly walked closer, until I saw the footprints stamped in ash and thought, Why didn't she clean those yesterday yesterday? When Rosa looked up she turned the vacuum off and waited for me to say something, but I was noticing that the furniture still had not been put back the way it was, and my hangover and confusion (because this room now seemed inescapably familiar to me) made saying anything superfluous.

Finally, Rosa gestured at the carpeting. "I think the party cause this, Mr. Ellis."

I stared down at the ashy footprints embedded there. "How can the party cause the carpet to change its color?"

"I hear there was many people." She paused. "Maybe they spill their drink?"

I slowly turned to face her. "What do you think we were serving them? Green dye?"

Rosa stared at me, humbled. A pause that seemed to last a decade ensued. I tried to offset the harshness of my tone by making a casual gesture. Without thinking I raised the Slurpee cup to my lips and then, just as casually, stopped myself.

"Miss Dennis-she outside" was all Rosa said, then looked away from me and turned the Hoover on again as I moved toward the kitchen.

On the table were the morning papers, and there was another headline about yet another missing boy, this one named Maer Cohen. I glanced at his photo quickly (twelve, nondescriptly Semitic) and noticed that he'd disappeared from Midland, which was only a fifteen-minute drive down the interstate from where we lived. My response was to turn the paper over. "Not today, can't deal with that today," I said aloud as I moved to the sink and discreetly poured out the contents of the Slurpee cup and rinsed it. And when I leaned against the counter, my hands picked up the vibrations of the whisper-quiet Miele dishwasher concealed behind the cherrywood panels. The vibration was soothing, but soon the sound of the leaf blower moving around the side of the house and into the backyard caused me to look up and out the wall of gla.s.s.

And then I remembered the headstone.

Craning my neck, I cautiously scanned the field.

I hesitated before accepting that it was no longer there.

And the epic darkness of last night flowed back to me.

But I walked outside onto the deck and it was a clear, beautiful day, still unseasonably warm, and everything seemed so less menacing in the light, almost as if the things I'd seen last night (and the fear I had felt) never existed. Victor lay in a heap in front of me, undisturbed by the roar of the leaf blower, and when I opened the kitchen door his tail started thudding expectantly against the deck but it stopped in midair when he realized who it was and then the tail lowered itself slowly until it curled between his hind legs. The dog flared its nostrils and let out a wet and heavy sigh. I searched my jeans for a Xanax and popped two and something briefly lifted off me, but then I saw the pool man (yes, this was definitely a Sat.u.r.day) fishing what looked like a dead crow out of the Jacuzzi. (On Sunday night at the Allens' I would find out that another crow had been nailed to the trunk of a large pine tree in front of the Larsons' house and another crow had been "broken in half" and stuffed into the Moores' mailbox; there was also one found mangled-"chewed on" is the phrase Mark Huntington will use-in the back of Nicholas Moore's Grand Cherokee, and yet another crow was dangling from a ma.s.sive spiderweb that spanned the two oaks in the O'Connors' front yard.) As I moved closer toward the Jacuzzi, I noticed that what differentiated this particular crow from any I had ever seen was its abnormally long and pointed beak. The pool man and I stood there studying the bird, both of us speechless, until he asked, "Do you guys have a cat?" The smell of smoke was in the air, and the sun was still climbing the sky. Sarah had left her Terby lying by the pool, and in the morning light it resembled something black and dead.

I looked over at the field again to make sure that the headstone was gone.

I stared at the empty field and out to where the ground rose slightly just before the woods began and remembered how Jayne called the field a "meadow," making it seem far more innocent than I now felt it was. The sound of the leaf blower kept getting closer, and I motioned to the gardener-a young white kid I'd never spoken to before. He turned the blower off and walked over, squinting in the harsh sunlight. I told the gardener there was something I wanted to show him and gestured toward the field. As we walked across the yard I asked if he had seen or heard anything strange lately. I noticed how deliberately I was walking while waiting for his answer, our feet crunching over the dead leaves.

"Strange?" he asked. "Well, Ms. Dennis was complaining that something was eating her plants and flowers. A couple of dead mice, a squirrel or two-pretty torn up. That's about it." The gardener shrugged. His tone suggested that none of this was unusual.

"It was probably our dog," I said brusquely. "That thing on the deck. He has a cruel, prankish streak in him."

The gardener didn't know what to say after that. Just a pause in which he smiled but the smile faded when he saw I wasn't joking.

"Well, dogs don't usually eat the kind of flowers Ms. Dennis has."

We were now on the periphery of the yard.

"You don't know this dog," I said. "You have no idea what he's capable of."

"Is that . . . right?" I heard the gardener murmur.

"I found something strange last night in the field."

We stepped over a low concrete divider and were now standing where the headstone had been and someone had dug a hole (my most hopeful scenario). I pointed at the wide, black, wet patch I'd slipped in, and which now led from where the headstone had stood and stretched toward our yard, where it abruptly ended at the divider. The gardener laid down the leaf blower and, taking his cap off, wiped the sweat from his forehead. The black trail was glistening in the midmorning sun-there was a white veneer of crust overlaying it but the trail wasn't entirely dry yet.

"What is it?" he asked, and I caught an expression usually a.s.sociated with dead things.

"Well, that's what I want to know."

"It looks like, um, mud."