He swallowed and turned his head to expose one eye. Through the shrubs he could see pieces of the pavement, the dark on the other side, and nothing else. A puzzled frown. His hands sliding off his hair to press on the gra.s.s and lift him up. Slowly. Bloodshot yellowed eyes darting side to side, taking in as much of the path as they could before his head rose over the top, before his knees straightened, before 62.his arms spread outward to balance for flight, to lunge for a fight.

But there was nothing there.

The path was empty, the punk gone, and when he pushed through to the oval and checked both directions, he realized he was alone.

Alone with the pressure, and n.o.body to kill.

Then he heard it again.Iron striking iron, m.u.f.fled, slow cadence; and when he whirled around to meet it his eyes opened, his mouth gaped, and he couldn't stop the denying shake of his head.

He was alone.

He could hear something large moving toward him, but he was completely alone.

The booze, he thought; it's the G.o.dd.a.m.ned booze. He rushed back into the trees, zigzagging to lose whatever was out there, then made his way to the westside wall. His lungs were aching and his hands were trembling, and when he tried to swallow, his throat felt coated with sharp pebbles.

He listened, hard, and sagged with relief when he heard nothing but the wind.

Then the pressure came again, in his head, in his chest. A deep solemn throbbing as he looked up at the moon.

It was time, then, no stalling, and he vaulted the wall nimbly, keeping to the shadows as he hurried to his right. The houses facing the park were large and lighted, but he couldn't hear a television, a radio, or any voices through open windows.

All he could hear was that noise from the park, and it goaded him to the corner, where he slumped against a telephone pole and checked the street up and down, panting slightly while his fingers flexed and his forehead creased.

Five minutes later Tanker saw him.

He was walking on the same side of the street, fingers snapping, hips and feet moving. Tanker frowned, thinking 63.the punk was drunk, until he saw the earphones, and the radio clipped to his belt.

A great way to die, he thought, grinning, and angled back around the wall's corner. A great way to die-smiling, listening to your favorite music, a nip in the air and on your way home.

He chuckled, and it sounded like a growl.

He followed the kid's progress carefully, poked his head out, and saw him tap the top of the wall in time to his listening, once spinning around and snapping those fingers high over his head.

When he spun around a second time, Tanker was there, smiling. Taking the kid's throat and pitching him effortlessly into the park. Before the kid landed, Tanker was kneeling beside him.

Before the song ended, Tanker was howling.

"Don the Barbarian sees the slime-covered trolls at the end of the witch's tunnel," he whispered as he moved slowly out of the kitchen, half in a crouch, his left arm braced across his chest for a shield, his right extended to hold his anxious pal, Crow. "The s.e.xy maiden ischained to a burning rock, and only Don has the strength to break the magic chains and save her from a fate worse than death." He looked to his right. "Crow, what's a fate worse than death?" His pal didn't answer, and when he tripped over the fringed edge of the hall rug and slammed into the wall, the telephone rang.

"Got it!" he shouted, wincing at the pain. His parents were in the back, in what used to be his father's study and was now the television room.

There was a championship fight on some cable channel, and he could hear his father cursing while his mother told the underdog's manager what he could do with his fighter and all his fighter's family.

Despite the language it was a good sound, a normal sound that hadn't been heard in the house for several weeks. They 64.were laughing, cheering together, and it sounded so right, he wished they would make up their minds how they felt about each other.

On the other hand, maybe they already had. Maybe they had made up and it was going to be all right.

The telephone rang again on the low table by the entrance to the living room. He s.n.a.t.c.hed up the handset, winked a good-bye at Crow, who was off to save the maiden from whatever her fate, and leaned against the doorframe.

It was Tracey. He had completely forgotten she had said she would call.

"Sorry I'm late," she said, her voice m.u.f.fled as though she were cupping her hand around the mouthpiece.

"No problem. I was out walking anyway."

"Oh, yeah? Anybody I know?"

"Nope. Just me." But he was pleased she had asked.

"Oh, yourself, huh? Not much company, Boyd."

"I wouldn't say that. If you must know, I happen to be very sophisticated when the mood strikes me."

She giggled, and he looked blindly toward the ceiling.

"How's the eye?"

He tested the side of his face. "Still there, I think."

"b.u.mmer about the detention."

Christ, he thought, bad news travels fast.

"I don't care," he said. "My grades haven't been all that good this year. I could use the time to study."

"Senior slump," she said. "You get complacent, y'know?"

Depressed is what you get, he thought, but he only grunted."Well, listen, Vet, about tomorrow night."

His stomach filled with insects too crawly to be b.u.t.terflies; he could hear it in her tone-she was going to say she already had a date with Brian. "Yeah?"

"I can't make it."

He decided to slit his throat; then he decided he was glad 65.because now he wouldn't have to face Brian. But first he would slit his throat.

"My father's got the weekend off and we have to go see my grandmother on Long Island. We're gonna leave right after school, he says."

"Oh. Well, okay."

"But look, we can go next Friday, if that's okay with you. Next Friday would be great. If you still want to, I mean."

He didn't say anything. His throat healed, the ceiling abruptly came into focus, and he could see her up there, floating, smiling, her dark hair in a wisp over her eyes.

"Vet, you still there?"

"Yeah, sure," he said, shaking himself.

"Okay." Subdued now. "I thought you were mad about tomorrow. Or about me calling you Vet."

"I don't mind. Really." The cord had twisted itself around his wrist and he couldn't get it off without taking away the earpiece and losing what she might say. "Really, no kidding."

And he didn't. She thought it was great that he was going to be so close to animals for the rest of his life. The day he had let it slip, she had immediately fantasized his working out in the country, traveling from village to village, farm to farm, making sure all his charges were in perfect health.

She had been serious.

Brian and Tar thought it was too perfect to be true-Duck, off to treat the ducks. For nearly a week afterward, every time they saw him they quacked and flapped their arms and told him they had hernias and had to swim standing up.

"So," she said, "I thought you told me that bio test was a snap."

They talked then the way they usually did, the preliminaries over and his heart slowly finding its way back into place. His mother walked by once with a sandwich and a beer, looked a question, and he smiled and pointed at her.

A girl? she asked silently.66 He nodded.

Chris Snowden?

He shook his head and mumbled a reply to something Tracey said.

His mother shrugged-it doesn't matter, dear, as long as it's female and she doesn't want to marry you before you go off to college-and moved on after checking on the status of his black eye, hip-swinging through the living room and back to the TV set. It was the long way around, and they both knew it.

"Don, d.a.m.nit, are you listening to me?"

"It was my mother," he said in a near whisper, checking to be sure the coast was clear. "Spying on me."

"Oh. Well, my folks don't care as long as he wears pants, combs his hair, and is rich. Dad figures I should be married a year after graduation."

"I thought you were going to school."

"I am. He just doesn't believe it yet. G.o.d, the man lives in the last century, I swear."

"Boy, tell me about it."

"Yeah, for sure." She yelled something at her older sister, and he could hear her mother fussing in the background. A deep voice chimed in-her father venturing an opinion about the family going to h.e.l.l.

"So," he said, "what were you saying?"

"The walk. Where did you go?"

"Out. The park."

"Wow!" A pause, more whispering. "Wow, Don, don't you ever listen to the news?"

He looked back toward the kitchen, at his mother's radio on the counter.

"Nope. Don't have time."

"Well, you better," she told him, her voice low. "Somebody was killed in there tonight. A couple of hours ago. My father just came in and-" She stopped. "Jesus, you were there then!"

67.He put a hand to his cheek and scratched lightly. "I didn't see anything. I didn't hear anything." The hand pressed a bit harder. "What happened?"

"I don't know. My father isn't talking. The radio said that this kid, from North, he was walking home from work, and he got it. They said ...

they guessed it was the Howler. Gross."

"Yeah."Iron striking iron.

"Boy, you could be a witness or something."

"But I didn't see anything, Tracey! Jesus, don't tell your father."

"Okay, okay." Her mother interrupted, and she snapped at her, groaning about how great it must be to be an only child. "Hey, Vet? What's your favorite animal?"

He sniffed, combed his hair with one hand while he drew on his imagination to put images in the air before him. "I never thought about it, you know that? Gee, that's funny but I never thought about it." His bedroom came to mind and he sorted through the posters and prints and figurines he had. "Horses, I guess. I don't know. Leopards and panthers."

She laughed, and someone in the background laughingly mocked her. "I didn't know you rode."

"Panthers? You don't ride panthers."

"No, stupid, horses. I didn't know you rode horses."

"I don't."

There was a pause, and a man's voice began grumbling.

"Then why horses?"

"I don't know." He saw the poster, the horse, and shrugged to the empty foyer. "They look ... I don't know, they look so big and powerful, y'know? Like they could run right over you and not even notice."

"A horse?"

"Sure."

"But they're stupid."

68."I guess."

"I mean, they're-" The man's voice was louder, and she covered the mouthpiece. He tried to make out the words but all he heard sounded like an argument. "Don, I have to go."

"Okay, sure."

"See you tomorrow?"

"Sure! Sure. I'll-"

She hung up and he stood in the middle of the floor and stared at the front door until his father walked by on his way upstairs and reminded him gently that he started detention the next day.

Don nodded.Norman, halfway up the stairs, looked down and frowned, started to say something, and changed his mind.

Don didn't notice.