They were at Mickey's house now, pulling into his driveway and onto his yard. Tricia Reardon's car was right where she'd left it. Justin wondered if she would be waiting in the living room when they walked inside.

They laid their bikes over on the gra.s.s, crossed the lawn and walked up the stairs to the porch, and then on to the front door, which had been left unlocked earlier in the evening. Justin pushed the door open and Reardon followed him inside. Tricia Reardon wasn't in the living room, nor, did Justin expect, would they find her anywhere else in the house.

All was quiet as they crossed the living room floor.

They were heading for the hallway, when Reardon said, "Look at that!"

And Justin, who had hoped never to hear that excited utterance again, looked up at the wall, halfway expecting to find Hannibal Cobb hanging upside-down like a bat on the d.a.m.n thing. But it was nothing like that, of course, because the only thing hanging on the wall was a clock, whose hands read: "Holy s.h.i.t," Justin said. "Eleven-forty-five? We left the house at what, six-thirty, six-forty-five? Thirty or forty minutes to get there? We were out there for four hours?"

"Didn't seem like it, did it?"

"Sure didn't."

"Just like I told you," Reardon said. "We were hypnotized. That's how it works, you lose all track of time and wake up groggy the next morning."

"How do you know? Have you ever been hypnotized?"

"No, but I know how to read. I know how to watch TV."

"TV, huh?"

"Yeah, that's how it works. Haven't you ever seen the X-Files?"

"Well, let's see now-about a thousand times."

"The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits?"

"And we were hypnotized tonight?"

"d.a.m.n straight we were."

"Man," Justin said. "I'm thirsty."

"Go on and help yourself," Reardon told him. "I'm gonna take a shower."

"What, you? Take a shower?"

"No, Justin. I'm gonna go to bed stinking like a dirty, sweaty pig."

"Oh, that's right. It's Sat.u.r.day night, isn't it?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Reardon said as he started down the hallway, calling over his shoulder, "Help yourself to whatever you can find if you're hungry!"

Justin went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Four bottles of c.o.ke sat on the shelf, along with a couple of bottles of Rolling Rock beer; a ca.s.serole dish Justin wasn't about to mess with and a leftover hunk of steak that looked like a piece of burnt shoe leather. There was milk on the shelf, though, and Justin thought there might be some cereal in the cupboard. Probably a near-empty box of Cap'n Crunch, knowing Reardon.

He took out the c.o.ke and shut the door, twisted off the cap and dropped it onto the kitchen counter. Then he leaned against the counter and took a good, long drink. The c.o.ke felt great washing down his throat-ice-cold and sweet, just the way he liked it. He took another drink and set the bottle on the counter, went to the cupboard and pulled open a door. And there it was, right where Justin figured it would be. A box of Peanut b.u.t.ter Cap'n Crunch with the goofy cartoon captain on its front, Mickey Reardon's favorite cereal, loaded with more sugar-coated goodness than a pharmacy has pills. Which left one small problem: finding a bowl that wasn't in that gigantic stack in the kitchen sink.

And, of course, he couldn't find a bowl, in the cupboard or anywhere else, which left only one alternative, one he wasn't all that happy about but figured it would be a good thing to do anyway. He walked over to the sink and began loading dirty dishes out of it onto the white Formica countertop. When he was done, he started the water running, stoppered the sink and squirted a healthy dose of dish washing detergent into it. Soon, the water filling the sink with suds, Justin began loading dishes back into the sink. There was a wash cloth hanging over the faucet; Justin grabbed it and sank it into the hot, soapy water. He swiveled the faucet to the right, over the white plastic strainer nestled into the other sink basin. Then he began doing a simple little ch.o.r.e, which, for some reason or other, Tricia Reardon no longer seemed willing or able to handle.

He stood at the sink, looking out through the kitchen window, at the back yard and the woods beyond it. Moonlight washing down through the treetops offered him a halfway decent view of the place: the lawn Mickey Reardon had recently mowed, the empty clothesline running between two rusty T-shaped poles, sunk into the ground years before the Reardon's had ever moved into the neighborhood. It was useless now that Tricia Reardon had a brand new clothes dryer, but had never been disa.s.sembled. By the side of the house was the wood pile, a couple of yards over from a razor-sharp ax that had been left sunk into the surface of a wide, flat stump the logs were split on.

Finished with the first round of dishes, he began sliding more of the same into the hot, soapy water. There was plenty left to do, as the sink had been piled high with seemingly every dish, gla.s.s, bowl, pot and pan and piece of silverware the Reardon family had in its possession.

Plenty left to do.

Wish I may oh wish I might, Justin thought.

Then he said it: "Wish I may oh wish I might, have these dishes clean tonight."

And suddenly they were. The sink was empty, the water gone, the porcelain basin sparkling clean. The strainer was empty, too, water no longer running from the faucet as Justin looked around the kitchen counter, which now stood clean as a whistle, with only the plastic bottle of c.o.ke and its plastic cap sitting on it. He opened a cupboard door, and there was a shelf full of sparkling clean gla.s.ses; next to them were several different sizes of plastic Tupperware. On the shelf above were three stacks of dishes of various widths. Next to them were the bowls and coffee cups that mere seconds ago had been stacked along the kitchen counter, alongside spatulas and long-handled forks, and all kinds of other kitchen implements, all dirty and waiting their turn in the hot and soapy water.

Except now they were all clean and put away in their own little places, places Justin would have had no earthly idea of where they should've been located. All because he wished it? How could that be? It couldn't be... could it?

Justin closed his eyes.

"Wish I may oh wish I might," he said. "Have a million bucks tonight!"

He opened his eyes but the counter was empty, closed his eyes and said it again, this time with his fingers crossed for good luck. But the counter was still empty when his eyes came open again. He ran down the hallway to Reardon's bedroom. He could hear the hiss of the shower as he opened his knapsack, hoping to find neat little bundles of hundred dollar bills inside it, all the while knowing he wouldn't because he'd seen enough movies to know a million bucks would never fit into something so small.

He sat on the edge of Mickey Reardon's bed, closed his eyes and wondered what the heck had just happened. Had he blacked out back in the kitchen, washed all those dishes and put them away; zonked out, s.p.a.ced out, and then came back to life to find his ch.o.r.e had been completed? Would he even have known where everything was supposed to go? How could he? Unless everything wasn't where it was supposed to go, and he'd just stacked the stuff wherever he felt like it.

That was it.

Of course it was.

Justin opened his eyes, stood up and started down the hallway, back to the kitchen, water no longer hissing from the shower as he pa.s.sed the closed bathroom door.

That was it, all right.

Had to be, otherwise, what would it all mean?

He'd blacked out at the carnival and s.p.a.ced out in the kitchen. Of course he had. Who wouldn't have, with the long and trying day he'd been through? A long, trying day, chock full of weird and difficult circ.u.mstances. They'd gone from late in the morning to midnight with only a couple of carnival corndogs to see them through. Who wouldn't be a little s.p.a.cey after something like that? Probably should have been back home and put to bed a long time ago-a couple of hours ago, at least.

"Oh, well," he said.

He picked up his c.o.ke and stepped up to the sink, looked out the window and saw a man come staggering out of the woods. He was tall and thin-emaciated, even. He had long, straight hair that fell across his shoulders. Bathed in the moonlight, he crossed the yard slowly, taking jarring, stiff-legged lurching steps. He had an electric guitar strapped around his neck, the fret board flat against his leg pointed down at the ground like some kind of wandering minstrel. Except it didn't take much for Justin to figure out who this wandering musician was, and that he more than likely had just wandered up and out of a shallow grave.

He looked at the clean kitchen countertop, at the ash-blonde wooden block of knives that sat upon it. All the knives in neat little rows. All the knives in their neat little slots, except for the one lodged deep in Rick Reardon's chest as he lurch-stepped across the back yard.

He stood there, stiff as a board in the kitchen window, watching Rick Reardon draw closer.

"Whoa, what are you, the bionic dishwasher or something?"

Justin turned to see Mickey Reardon standing behind him. His dark hair, still wet from the shower, lay plastered against his head. He had changed clothes, switching the red t-shirt for a dark blue one, the faded jeans for a pair of brown cut-offs. The soiled Converse sneakers were back on his feet.

"Are we still hypnotized?"

"Huh?"

"ARE WE STILL f.u.c.kING HYPNOTIZED!"

"Jesus, Justin," Reardon said. He stepped up beside his friend, looked out the window and gasped.

Rick Reardon was closer now, crossing in front of the clothesline, his legs steadier, st.u.r.dier beneath him, almost as if he'd forgotten how to walk but now it was all coming back. He was moving at a halfway steady gait now. Soon he would be at the wood pile, then at the kitchen door.

"Christ," Reardon said. He stood beside Justin, the hands he had laid flat on the kitchen counter now beginning to tremble.

"Is that a trick?"

Reardon said nothing, just stood at the window, watching his father approach.

"Is that a f.u.c.king trick? Didn't I tell you to stop? Didn't I tell you *no, don't do it', that he was tricking your dumba.s.s?"

"Shut up, Justin," Reardon said. "Shut up!"

His father was at the wood pile, his clothes in tatters, as was the skin hanging off his thin face. Dark brown stains surrounded the thick-handled butcher knife protruding from his chest. His wrists were thin as broomsticks, his face and hands smeared with dirt. His eyes, dull and flat and dead as doornails, were staring up at the window. He smiled. Then he took off for the back porch, and now his halfway steady gait wasn't much of a gait at all. His legs seemed to be working perfectly fine as he walked straight up the steps and across the porch, opened the door and stepped into the kitchen. He was grinning now, grinning and looking around the kitchen, as if he'd been out on one of his weekend-long binges and was happy to have found his way back home again.

"Hey, little buddy," he said, his voice a dull, flat monotone Justin had never heard before. A voice that didn't seem to belong to Rick Reardon at all, not the Rick Reardon Justin remembered.

He stood in the stark white light of the kitchen, staring at Justin and Mickey as they cowered by the sink in an unequivocal state of shocked surprise. And now they really could see him. His skin, blotched with different shades of grey, was littered with an a.s.sortment of ragged holes, as if something down in the dirt had been eating away at him. A patch of skin was missing off the bridge of his nose, exposing a small segment of bone. The stains on his once white shirt were not brown, but the dark rusty color of dried blood. He took a step forward and Justin and Mickey slid a couple of feet down the front edge of the kitchen counter.

"I'm so hungry," he said. "I'm so f.u.c.king hungry."

He took a step further into the kitchen, sideways, so neither boy could run past him into the living room. He was a tall man. His thin arms were long, and no matter which way they ran, Justin was pretty sure he could stop them.

He looked at Mickey, at Justin, and then back at Mickey.

Something dead in the grave for six weeks and counting stood in the middle of the kitchen, staring at them as if they were Sunday dinner. It wasn't a he-Justin knew that now. He understood that now. It was an it.

"I'm so hungry," It said. "So f.u.c.king hungry!"

Then it came straight at them, straight for them, those long, thin arms stretched out before it, fingers clawing and grasping as Reardon went one way and Justin went the other-Justin the wrong way because that ended up being the same direction Mickey Reardon's dearly departed father had taken. Except now he wasn't nearly so dear, and sure as h.e.l.l didn't look like he'd be departing any time soon.

The guitar strap slipped free and that long, lean Stratocaster crashed to the floor as those clawing and grasping hands found him. Those wrists were thin as broomsticks, but the hands were strong as steel when they grabbed Justin and wrestled him down to the hardwood floor. And that smell, worse than anything Justin had ever before experienced. Those hands, dry as the dust on a dead man's coffin, were around his neck, those dull, flat eyes come suddenly to life as the hands tightened and Justin's eyes bulged out, and he began to sputter: "Puh, Plea... Please."

Justin couldn't breathe, could barely see the grinning monster squeezing the very life from him, as darkness circled like vultures, and then swooped down to carry him away to a dark and tortured place he did not want to see.

The hands loosened, and whatever was on top of him suddenly fell off, as someone shouted, "GET OFF HIM, d.a.m.n YOU! GET OFF!"

Everything snapped back into focus as he turned sideways to see Mickey Reardon clubbing his dead father about the head and shoulders with his prized guitar, dust and dirt flying from his corpse while Justin struggled up to his knees, and then onto his feet.

Mickey's a.s.sault had thrown his father off balance, but it wasn't going to stop him for long-Justin could see that. He wasn't hurting him, more of an annoyance than anything else. He grabbed Reardon by the shoulder. "Come on!" he said. "C'mon!"

Reardon slung the guitar at his dad, who batted it away as if it were made of feathers, as Justin and Mickey bolted for the back door. But Rick Reardon was moving now, off the floor and flying like the wind after them, out the back door and over the back porch railing, diving and landing square on Justin as he rounded the wood pile, clawing his way up his back, moaning and digging those sharp fingers into his throat, clutching and squeezing while the ax-head whistled through the air and Rick Reardon's head went up and back, spinning to the ground a few feet away, while his hands, seemingly with a mind of their own, kept clutching and clawing, squeezing and clutching, until the ax thunked first high into one thin arm, severing it from its shoulder, and then whacked into the other, doing the same for it as well.

Mickey Reardon, a miniature Paul Bunyan holding the ax before him, put a foot against his father's chest. "I SAID, GET OFF HIM!" Mickey yelled, and then pushed him backward onto the ground. He dropped the ax and fell to his knees, grabbing one of those thin arms and then the other, pulling them away from Justin, who rolled onto his back and stared wide-eyed up at him. The hands at the ends of those arms, dead six weeks and counting, were still moving, the fingers still reaching and flexing. Mickey tossed the arms away, turning as Justin pushed up to his knees, both boys watching Rick Reardon, who lay flat on his back, his legs moving slowly back and forth, as if his feet were trying to find purchase. His arms were gone, sliced clean away by that razor-sharp ax, but there was no gush of blood, nor was there a flood of some gooey-sticky bodily fluids like in a horror movie. His arms were in the dirt, the fingers still flexing, his head in the gra.s.s a few feet away, its mouth moving up and down, mouthing something Justin was glad they would never have to hear.

"Jesus, Mickey," Justin said.

"No s.h.i.t," said Mickey.

"What're we gonna do?"

"What do you mean?"

"He's not dead. He might not ever die again."

"Eh," Reardon said. "He's a zombie. Zombies always die."

He stood up, picked up the ax and walked over to his father's head, grabbed a handful of hair and lifted it as well. Then he carried the head back to the wide, flat stump, where he had spent half his years splitting short lengths of wood into fodder for the family's fireplace. He sat the head on the stump and took a step back, he and Justin watching as those dull, flat eyes looked up, those jaws worked up and down but nothing came out.

Mickey Reardon lifted the ax.

"Bye, Dad," he said, and then slammed the flat head of the ax dead center on his father's skull, one time, two times, three times, five times, ten times, until Justin grabbed his arm, until nothing was left but a flat, greasy mess of blood and bone and bits of rancid brain matter that once upon a time had fired neurons throughout Rick Reardon's living and breathing body.

"That's enough," Justin said, still gripping Mickey's arm. "He's stopped moving."

"She killed him."

"I know," Justin said.

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"But why?"

"There's no way for us to know."

"He was my dad."

"I know."

"And she killed him."

"Maybe she had to. Maybe he attacked her or something."

"Then she buried him so n.o.body would know what she did?"

"Maybe she was afraid of what might happen. Women go off to prison all the time for killing men who beat on them. You see it on those news shows every other weekend it seems."

"Told me he'd gone off and left us on our own?"

Justin said nothing. He stood there while tears flooded Mickey's eyes. Finally, he said, "She's all you've got now, Mickey. You know she loves you. She's all you've got and you're all she's got. Let's just throw your dad back in his hole and figure out what we're gonna do now... Okay?"

"Yeah," Reardon said. "Okay."

He dropped the ax and picked up an arm, and Justin picked up an arm as well. Reardon grabbed an ankle and Justin grabbed the other, and the two of them dragged Rick Reardon's corpse through the yard and past the clothesline, back toward the woods he had so recently emerged from.