"Terris," said Septimus, and pointed into the darkness.

Bill was ready to see another character like Mary or Trent shambling out of the grove. But instead he just saw trees, the slender white trunks like sticks of chalk rammed into the ground.

"Terris?" asked Bill.

Septimus grunted. "His mark. Right there."

Bill squinted into the darkness. On the trunk of the thickest tree there was a dark smear, glistening black like tar or wet blood, that eventually resolved into a single letter.

A giant T.

"Terris is teasing me," said Septimus.

"That's dumb," said Bill.

"Maybe. But when you meet Terris, you won't think so. Oh, but manners, manners! I was going to do some sharing while we walked. Please watch my back."

Septimus uttered a couple of soft, ugly words. Bill could not understand them, but the mere sound made his skin crawl.

Then a patch of white, which Bill at first interpreted as a beam of light, slithered across Septimus' back. But then the patch organized itself, becoming a horizontal slash that went from shoulder blade to shoulder blade.

"What the hell," Bill muttered.

Then the white patch was still.

And it turned into two lines, connected at their ends, but sagging away from each other in the middle.

It was a mouth.

Which smiled at him. And spoke.

"Not really necessary, but fun," it said.

The mouth opened wide, revealing jagged white teeth. It laughed, the sound little more than a chuckle, but it made all of Bill's hair stand on end.

"You know now that I can do pretty much whatever I want," said the mouth/Septimus. "I could make you follow me, Bill. I could tear out your guts and make you eat them, and then regenerate you and make the whole thing happen again. I could turn these trees into bears, and have it rain honey from the skies. I could make you grow seventeen legs, and clone you, and have you run races against yourself."

Bill swallowed. Despite the nightmare he was walking through, he found himself getting really pissed off.

And being pissed off went a long way.

He walked forward, until he got closer to the mouth. It smiled at him, he was sure, curling up around Septimus' shoulders.

"I think," said Bill, "that you're just a fucking freak. I think you're making us hallucinate all of this shit, somehow."

"No, Bill," the mouth said.

"Just fucking turn around and talk to me," Bill said. "Face me like a man, and not some little pussy."

Then Bill alarmed even himself by reaching up to Septimus' shoulder and clamping his hand onto the rough fabric.

Septimus stopped in his tracks.

"William," said the mouth. "Darling, so rough."

Bill felt the mouth's breath across his arm. It was warm, and smelled like clothes dried on a line.

Some self-preservation alarm went off deep in Bill's brain, overriding even his anger.

He hastily pulled his arm away.

"Um..." he said. "I...uh..."

"Quite all right," said the mouth.

As Bill watched, the mouth disappeared into the jacket, the camo pattern wiping out all of the white between Septimus' shoulders.

And Bill knew what was going to happen next.

He didn't know how he knew, but the sense of inevitability was so strong it was like he'd written the scene for some kind of play and was watching an actor perform it.

At first, Septimus looked over his shoulder, that irritating smile on his mouth. Thena"as Bill knew would happena"his head twisted around a full one-hundred and eighty degrees. The only sound was a quiet pop of of the vertebrae, as if Septimus had received a small adjustment from the chiropractor.

Bill faced the turned-around head, and realized that he was becoming accustomed to shit like this happening. He hoped it didn't mean he was losing his grip.

"We may continue walking," said Septimus, and took a long step forward. His motion was unhindered by the fact that his face was now facing the same direction as his ass. "If you please, darling William. Wasted enough time on these little cantrips for you. The morning grows close." As Septimus spoke, he had strode forward five or six paces.

"Yeah, okay," murmured Bill, "As I've told you, don't worry about your wife," said Septimus.

Bill didn't meet his gaze, but stared at the forest floor."

"Fuck you," Bill muttered. "Freak."

"No," said Septimus. "No, no. So much more than a freak." Then he laughed, and the sound raised goosebumps on Bill's arms.

"Like what?"

"You realize," said Septimus, "That I don't have to share any of this with you. I could make you cut off your own balls and stretch your scrotum over your head like a shower cap. But for some reason, I think you and your wife were...meant to be here."

"So fucking what," said Bill, keeping his eyes to the ground. He'd never felt so helpless; like an insect pinned to a board while it was still alive.

"Yes," said Septimus. "And I was just kidding about that Jesus bullshit. Jesus was a mongoloid idiot. A fucking retard, like someone like you would say. Couldn't save a pile of shit from a swarm of flies. You don't believe that Jesus is lord, do you, Bill? I don't think you do. And that die in three days prediction? Perhaps, and perhaps not."

Septimus' smile had vanished, leaving only a ghost-image of a mouth and two black balls for eyes.

Bill resisted the urge to spit in Septimus' face.

"Do I have a choice?" he asked.

"No," Septimus replied without hesitation. "But wait, Bill. It's going to have to wait."

"What?"

"The answers to your burning questions, they are going to have to be shoved in your back pocket. Because here is one of the answers in front of you."

"What?"

"We're at camp."

Eleven.

Septimus' head turned back around. It moved silently, without any cracking from his vertebrae or tearing of flesh or anything like that. Like his neck was made out of clay.

Then Septimus turned his body, his arms folded.

"Welcome," he said, and made a gesture into the trees beyond.

There was a faint flicker of red and gold light. Light from a campfire. Hadn't been there before, when Bill was staring right at the trees.

"The dead boys would love to meet you," said Septimus. "Please, follow me."

At that he pushed by Bill, placing a massive hand on his chest. Bill recoiled, but before anything happened Septimus took his hand away. The magician strode through the trees, moving as silently as a cat.

"Dying to meet you," he said. "Come on."

Before Bill followed, he looked back into the forest. Was Constance safe back there, in the dark and surrounded by the dead?

"I love this place," Septimus said. "Love it."

"Oh God," said Bill.

At his feet was a body.

He stared down, clenching his fists and gritting his teeth. Whoever it was hadn't died peacefully.

The skin had been removed from its head, leaving only shreds of muscle and sinew. The eyes were intact, but being lidless they stared ceaselessly into the tops of the trees.

It had been a male, as it wore a pale three-piece suit, complete with an orange paisley tie.

Bill stepped backward, reaching out as if for a hand to support him.

"That is Mr. Fancy," said Septimus. "I haven't learned his real name."

Septimus stood next to a bonfire, which burned as tall as the top of his head. The light it cast was direct and powerful. But when Bill saw what the yellow and orange flames illuminated, he wished for the blackness of the forest again, or even to be struck blinda"anything that would save him from the sight before him.

Bodies everywhere.

They were arranged in neat rows, shoulder to shoulder. Every one faced upward, their eyes open (if they had eyes) and fixed on the night sky.

"This is my army," said Septimus.

As Bill retreated, this back hit a tree. He had an insane urge to climb it, to get as much distance between himself and this place as possible. But his muscles froze, horror overwhelming him. He thought to cover his eyes, but his body betrayed him by opening his eyes farther, as if some part of him was perversely hungry for the sight.

There were at least a hundred bodies, he calculated madly. Laid out in a fashion that reminded him of photographs by war photographers, of the aftermath of some genocide or another.

"Dead," Bill heard himself say. "All dead."

"Yes," said Septimus, and sighed like a proud father. "All of them."

Bill's eyes fixed on the body of a woman. She was wearing a modest one piece bathing suit, which might have once been white. Now it was soiled with dirt and blood. She lay with her hands behind her head, her dark hair spilling around her, as if she was just taking a short nap on the beach. Protruding from one of her eyes was the handle of a knife.

"Shit," said Bill.

Another body was a grotesquely fat man in a sweatsuit. His jacket had fallen open, revealing a shirt with a huge picture of Darth Vader printed on the front. The top of the man's head had been carved off, revealing the gray mass of his brains.

"Love them all," said Septimus. "Every one like a child to me."

There was a woman in striped stockings, with her hands cut off, the stumps reaching into the sky.

Someone in camouflage shorts and a white t-shirt, their chest riddled with what appeared to be bullet holes.

A man with dreadlocks and a spear through his bare abdomen.

"Ask me, Bill," said Septimus. "Ask where I got them."

Bill blinked, clutched at the tree behind him. He fixated on what looked like a child in overalls, except the face was as wizened as his grandmother's. Bill felt ready to pass out, to join the ranks of the dead spread out at his feet.

And an absurd thought bubbled into his consciousness. As if being faced with utter horror, his brain vomited out something trite, as if in an attempt at psychological counterbalance.

"They're not all boys," said Bill. "Call them dead boys, but there are some women." The words came painfully through a dry throat.

Septimus laughed.

"So literal. Don't you think 'Dead Boys' it has a kind of ring? Like the Lost Boys in the Peter Pan story? Ha ha ha."

Bill wiped his nose. Woodsmoke burned his nostrils, covering up the rotting human stench. He kept a hand over his mouth.

And once again, a part of his brain that demanded rationality in the face of the irrational, made him talk. He felt far removed from any of the words or their meanings, as if they were spoken in another language.

"Where did you get them?" he demanded.

Septimus, who crouched next to the fire near him lay a teenage male, with thick black-frame glasses and skintight white jeans. Tattoos covered the kid's arms, and Bill saw one of the images clearly: a devil's face in crimson and purple.