And summer became fall.

And Brian, one night in mid-October, slept in his bed and felt the first tentative wigglings of a tentacle in his brain.

He dreamed of this long narrow alley all wrapped in darkness, and up this alley, slow-walking with a plopping sound, came a shape, and somehow Brian knew the shape was a demon-G.o.d and the demon-G.o.d was called the G.o.d of the Razor.

Down the alley of his mind came the demon-G.o.d, and Brian was afraid. He tried to wake up, but no soap. He tried to will it away, but no soap.

On came the demon-G.o.d, making a horrible plopping sound as he walked.

Very close now. And clearly visible as he folded out of darkness.

The G.o.d of the Razor was tall, black-not Negro, but black-with shattered starlight eyes and teeth like thirty-two polished, silver stickpins. He ha on a top hat that winked of chrome razor blades molded into a bright hatband. His coat (and Brian was not sure how he knew this, but he did) was the skinned flesh of an ancient Aztec warrior and his pants were the same. Raw, b.l.o.o.d.y fingers stuck out of his pants pockets like stashed after-dinner treats, and the Dark Side Clock (another thing he knew, but did not understand), which was an enormous pocket watch, dangled from a strand of gut attached to the G.o.d's vest pocket-a pocket that was once the fleshy slit that housed an eye. The shoes he wore (another unexplained knowledge) were the ragged heads of guillotined Frenchmen from a long-dead revolution. The G.o.d's cloven feet fit nicely into those dead mouths and when he walked the heads thudded like medicine b.a.l.l.s being slow-bounced along a hardwood floor.

And the G.o.d's fingernails were not nails at all, but razor blades. He kept rubbing them together as he walked, making them click and pop up sparks.

Then he was very close and out of nowhere he popped out a chair made of human leg bones with a seat of woven ribs, hunks of flesh, hanks of hair, and he seated himself, crossed his legs, dangled one ragged head shoe, produced from thin air a ventriloquist dummy and put it on his knee. The dummy wore tennis shoes, jeans, a black tee-shirt and a leather jacket with zippers, and the face was the wood-carved, ridiculously red-cheeked face of Clyde.

The G.o.d shoved his hand into the back of the Clyde dummy, pushed it forward and placed it on his knee. The dummy opened its mouth, "Been jacking around long enough, haven't you?"

Brian tried to speak, but couldn't. He couldn't determine where he was located in the dream.

"Time to get cracking," the dummy said. "We got work to do. That b.i.t.c.h of a teacher didn't get what she should have gotten, and it's up to you to see that she does."

Brian still couldn't speak. He did not feel as if he were dreaming. He was frightened.

"You know who my pal here is, don't you?" said the dummy.

"The G.o.d of the Razor," Brian said, suddenly finding his voice.

"Right. A big cigar. Those that have the call know him when they see him. You might say I'm his puppet, have been all along. And you are my puppet. I'm going to be living inside your head. Moving in the furniture tonight . . . and you're going to pay the rent and utilities. Got me?"

"I think so."

"Sure you do. Now, I want to get those s.h.i.theads together, Loony b.a.l.l.s and Stone, and I want you to go over and get that teacher broad, and I want you to cut her heart out and hang her up by her toes. Got me?"

"Yes . . . but- "But? But? No buts. The only but you better worry about is your b.u.t.t, what's going to happen to it if you don't do as you're told. But! But my a.s.s. Some f.u.c.king s.h.i.thead a.s.shole Superman you turned out to be."

The Clyde dummy turned its head with a creak and looked up into the horrible face of the G.o.d of the Razor and shook his head, and the G.o.d shook his head from side to side and looked very unhappy, frowned so hard his stickpin teeth poked out of his razor-slit mouth, punched his lips until they bled pops of black blood.

The Clyde dummy held up its wooden arm, said, "Wait a minute. Now just wait a minute. Brian's all right, just a bit f.u.c.ked over right now. He's not fully awake."

The dummy turned back to Clyde, leaned well forward and said, "This is no dream, Brian old boy. This is the real McCoy, and knock on wood," the dummy rapped wooden knuckles against its wooden chest, "I've told old Razor G.o.d here that you're a good man."

The dummy leaned so far forward now he nearly fell off the G.o.d's knee. He whispered, "You wouldn't let me down, now would you?"

"No," Brian said. "Course not."

"Yeah, course not."

"I just thought I was dreaming, that's all. I mean I didn't know it was really you."

"Right." The dummy leaned back on the G.o.d's knee, turned to took the G.o.d in the face again.

"See," he said. "I told you Brian was an okay guy, didn't I?"

The G.o.d made no answer, but a few of the stickpin teeth disappeared into the jaw of his mouth. The face seemed to relax; went from real ugly to just ugly.

The dummy turned back to Brian, said, "Get your s.h.i.t together, man. Get it together quick like. I'm packing my bags tonight, and I'm going to get everything moved in that hollow head of yours . . . Oh, shall we say, 0600 hours?

"Now, I want to make a few things clear. The G.o.d here, he's a pretty patient guy, more patient than me in fact, and you know that I'm a regular f.u.c.king saint when it comes to patience. I mean, I never did get around to deballing Loony, and I should have. If I'd done that early on, well I wouldn't be here to talk to you tonight. Not that I mind now, I mean I stretched my own goose on account of some promises the old G.o.d here made me.

Came to me in my cell and said, 'Clyde, old buddy, have I got the plan for you. Only thing is, you're going to have to come on over here on the Dark Side.' So, I say, what the h.e.l.l? I mean, what am I doing anyway? And here I am." The dummy spread its hands and smiled.

"So it's pretty nice over here. Beer, p.u.s.s.y, lots of blood. Oh, the blood, Brian, so beautiful. And the power I got, man. I mean, I can do all sorts of neat f.u.c.king things."

"I'm running my mouth, I guess. Point I'm trying to make is you can do your duty and come over here on the Dark Side and live like a f.u.c.king king, or you can f.u.c.k up and come over here on the Dark Side, only you won't be living like no king, buddy. Nasty stuff over here for f.u.c.kups. Like riding the edge of a razor blade forever, feeling it slice up through your bails and belly, but never quite doing you in, just slicing and sawing and . . . Well, we don't need to make that any more clear, do we?"

Brian shook his head.

"You're special to me, Brian, really. I want the best for you, but you got to attend to some ch.o.r.es first, before we lay all this fun stuff on you. Now believe me, I know it can be rough. Boy-f.u.c.kinghowdy, can it. I mean, I paid my dues and I remember. I'm not one to forget, pal. So, in the final bulls.h.i.t of all this, what I'm telling you is, you got to waste the teacher c.u.n.t and anyone that gets in the way of you wasting her. Then, when you're all finished, you can think about coming on over here for a big beer party." The dummy turned to the G.o.d. "Right, G.R.?" The G.o.d nodded its fearful head ever so slightly.

"I understand," Brian said.

"Hey, that's good," the Clyde dummy said. "Real f.u.c.king good."

"No problem."

"Better yet. Now listen: Going to be with you on this, right inside your head. I'm you.

You're me- sort of. Get my drift?"

Brian nodded.

"Good." The dummy suddenly turned his head to the G.o.d, said, "What's that, G.R.?" which surprised Brian because he hadn't heard the G.o.d say a word.

"Right," Clyde said to the G.o.d.

"He says we're killing time, but not people. He's right, you know."

The G.o.d reached down, picked up the Dark Side Clock dangling on its strand of gut, and held it in front of his face, frowned so the stickpin teeth punched out his mouth again.

Then he turned the face of the watch toward Brian.

Brian looked at the watch, at two skeletal fingers that served as hands, noted there were no numbers on the watch, only a face-a real face, his face, trapped inside, squirming and pressing its nose in little wet smudge circles against a smoky gla.s.s.

And the G.o.d pulled the watch back and looked at it, and for the first time he spoke and it was the voice of thunder and lightning on a scary, electric-storm night, "Bless your soul."

The G.o.d dropped the watch between his legs. It swung like a pendulum, sc.r.a.ped the floor and threw up sparks.

Brian moaned, thought: Let me out of this nightmare.

"No nightmare," the Clyde dummy said, as if Brian had spoken aloud. "Least not the kind that goes away. We've got work to do. You can have some time on it, but," and Clyde's wooden face cracked around the mouth and eyes and Brian could see real flesh beyond the wood and Clyde finished the rest of his sentence in a loud, edge-of-a-scream voice, " I want that b.i.t.c.h! I want that b.i.t.c.h! I want her dead, dead, dead, dead!" Then in a voice as calm as the eye of a hurricane: "And if I don't get her, guess who gets to take her place?

You know him. I know him. His first name begins with B. His last name begins with B.

"B.B. Ring any bells?"

"I'll get her, Clyde."

"Hey, do I look worried? Never doubted it a minute. I know you will." The dummy lifted its hand and pointed a finger (real flesh punched out of the wooden tip).

"I'm you. You're me." More cracks appeared around the dummy's mouth and eyes and one crack widened, ran up the cheek, struck the right eye and exploded it in fragments.

Behind it was a very real eye-Clyde's eye.

"I'll get her. I tell you, I'll get her."

"You got no choice-unless you consider eternity with a razor blade up your a.s.s a choice. You see, the G.o.d of the Razor is our G.o.d, Brian. He's the ruler of all sharp things.

Knives, razors and the clean paper cut. I mean, he's our main man. He's going to be there with you when you cut the b.i.t.c.h's heart out-there with us! He's going to guide our hand."

The Clyde dummy suddenly went limp. Pieces of wood fell away from its face.

The G.o.d of the Razor took off his top hat-and perhaps had Brian not been so frightened, he might have found the bald head with a zipper down the middle amusing- and put the dummy into it. He then put the hat on his head, and Brian could hear clearly the sound of a zipper being unzipped and zipped back beneath the hat.

The G.o.d took hold of the gut from which the watch dangled, flipped it into one hand and wound the k.n.o.b briskly with the other. Brian felt a spring tightening in his brain, tightening to the point of explosion.

"Tempus fugit," the G.o.d boomed, and then Brian sat upright like a half-closed jackknife in his bed, and outside the window there was another boom, only it was thunder and not the voice of the G.o.d of the Razor, and it was followed by a hiss of lightning that was not too unlike a cosmic sigh.

Brian realized he had wet the bed like a little kid.

TWO.

Next morning Brian tore off the sheets and took them down to be washed, told his mother that they were sweaty. She asked no questions, because none ever occurred to her, and then Brian went back upstairs, and a third of the way up he stopped and listened. He had heard a sound, like the sc.r.a.ping of a chair on a floor. Had it come from inside his head?

"Moving in the furniture tonight . . . packing my bags . . . shall we make it 0600 hours ..."

Brian ran up the stairs, into his room, to the mirror in the bathroom. Behind his eyes, ever so faintly, he could see Clyde's eyes.

"Got you, buddy," Brian said. "Don't sweat, pal. I'll get it done. You keep that Dark Side beer cooled."

THREE.

The Witching Hour.

A cool October night with the wind sighing through the trees and house eaves like mult.i.tudes of dying men breathing their last.

Down the street a dark car comes, lights bouncing, motor grumbling.

In front of the Blackwood house the lights and motor die. Doors open, close gently.

A minute later Brian's bedroom gla.s.s rattles.

Rattles again.

Brian rolls over, listens. He thinks: Is that Clyde scratching at my brain?

Trembling, he sits up in bed.

The window rattles again.

He throws back the covers, puts his feet in slippers and slide-walks to the window.

It rattles again, and he realizes that something is being tossed against the gla.s.s. He looks out, sees a car crouched by the curb. He recognizes it.

The gla.s.s rattles again.

Brian raises the window, looks down, sees two familiar shapes.

They wave. Brian lifts a hand in return. He closes the window, dresses, goes down.

FOUR.

"Clyde came to me," Brian said to Loony and Stone.

Stone and Loony looked at one another.

"I bet he smelled bad," Loony said, thinking Brian was making a joke.

"In a dream. He says we're to kill the teacher b.i.t.c.h that got him caught. We got to do that."