Still, there's something here. Something going on, something happening. For the first time in years, the dismal still life of his world is churned up, like a shaken snow globe.

And Keisha might yet be near, yes she might.

But where to turn? Not to the sheriff. He's tried the police for years and all they seem good for is putting paper into files, drinking coffee, nodding, and looking at their watches. But where then? Maybe the FBI should step in. After all, they're the big dogs, the Saint Bernards of law enforcement. And maybe they could crack the whip on these lamebrained, limp-d.i.c.k, small-town, Barney Fife pigs.

He takes a deep breath to calm himself. No use getting his p.i.s.s boiling again. That wouldn't lead to anything but indigestion.

No, the FBI isn't the answer. He's tried them. He's written letters to the DA, to the governor (that worthless jacka.s.s), he's seen the FBI agents-Marley and Grovner were their names-take down his statements and stash them away in a nice, neat manila folder, never to be seen again. Never a call returned. Never a letter acknowledged.

p.i.s.s in the wind, Dirty Dan would've said.

Still, there's something going on here, all around him; he can feel it in the air, in the ground. Like getting near a big machine- even with the earplugs in, you feel the vibration. (Ron Bent knows about machines. He ran a printing press for almost three months in Dothan. Wasn't much good at that, though.) The truth is all around him, and it's big, big as the miracle of life, big as G.o.d, and just as hard to see, praise him.

And that kid. If somebody took his friend, then at least there's an ally. Somebody on the same road, somebody else who maybe knows a piece of the truth.

Ron shovels a handful of fries into his mouth, and for the first time in years, maybe in his life, he wallows in the possibility that he's lonely. Really, desperately lonely. Because right now, the thought of a brother-in-arms is as tempting as a beer is to a drunk. And Ron Bent knows something about that. He was always a pretty good drunk.

There's only one problem, and that's the fact that the kid didn't seem too eager for a friend or too interested in the handicapped old b.a.s.t.a.r.d who had given him a ride to the doctor's. The kid had hardly uttered a word. And why should he? Why would somebody want to take up with a bitter, crotchety old screwup like Ron anyway?

Lord,

Grant me the humility to face myself

And the strength to walk my road alone,

Because that's the path you've laid out for me,

Hard as it may be,

And-

Ron freezes in the midst of his sip of iced tea.

He almost laughs-it's that strange a sight he sees through his winds.h.i.+eld.

The pretty young nurse and a small, timid-looking doctor appear at the back door of the office, looking over their shoulders like a couple of spies in a pulp magazine, hauling a limp, heavy object to the waiting door of a silver Lincoln Town Car. And that object is a body. And that body-Ron knows without knowing, since it's too far to see for sure-is the kid he dropped off half an hour ago.

Ron is very still, staring. He breathes in slow, and as he does his mouthful of sweetened tea jets down the wrong pipe. By the time he stops choking, the town car is already pulling onto the street. But no amount of coughing or blurred, teary-eyed vision will stop Ron Bent, not now, and he slaps his car into gear and lurches forward, spilling some tea on his lap, not caring. As he pulls onto the road with a bottom-thunking "whack" and punches the throttle, he can almost hear little Keisha laughing, and sweet d.a.m.n does it sound good.

Praise G.o.d.

He bubbles up into consciousness, like oil rising to the surface of water. Later, he'll remember that his name is Caleb, that he lettered in track for the last three years, and that his best friend was stolen by sleepwalking apparitions. Right now, though, all he knows is that his head is vibrating with poisonous agony. When he opens his eyes-it isn't for a few minutes-the world is blurred, like a sidewalk chalk drawing after a storm. This would be very frightening if he could formulate the thought of panic, but it seems his brain has shattered and the piece holding fear, along with the piece that focuses his eyes, is missing. Instead, the guy who'll soon realize he's Caleb lies still, listening. There's the rattle and hum of an electric fan. A bird sings far away, and a heavy door closes. Footsteps echo in a hollow place.

The guy who is Caleb tries to get up, but his legs are liquid, and a sizzling brand of pain slashes through his arm and he falls back. The clacking stops, and there's a voice, smooth and even and deep.

The guy who is Caleb remembers a wood-shop teacher he used to have, a really odd, skinny guy with buggy eyes, thick gla.s.ses, and a million bizarre quips. His main focus in life, it seemed, was getting pieces of wood very smooth. That was all that seemed to get the fella off. He'd rub the project, whatever it was, a cedar box, a pine cutting board in the shape of a pig, or a small stool, and shake his head, "Needs more sanding, needs more waxing." But when he was finally pleased, there was only one phrase he used without fail: "Slicker'n snot on a doork.n.o.b," he'd say.

And that is the only way to describe the voice that fills the guy's (Caleb's) head now.

Slicker'n snot on a doork.n.o.b.

"Relax, don't try to get up," the slick voice says. "You'll just injure yourself further. The doctor says you only have a mild fracture, but we wouldn't want to make it any worse."

He (Caleb) tries to see the face of the person talking to him, but all there is is a grotesque white blur that looks nothing like a person.

The voice must've read the look of concern on his face, because it says: "The medication causes some blurring of vision. It's normal, don't worry. You might close your eyes for a while; sometimes the distortion can cause nausea."

(Caleb) does as the voice bids him. It continues: "It will dull your pain, though, even render you unconscious in large doses, as I'm sure you observed. In some military circles, it's also used as a truth serum. Interesting, how as complex a thing as a human being is ruled by simple chemicals. And most of us fancy ourselves to be unsolvable riddles. But let's try an experiment, shall we? Just to see. Just to know if it works. Are you ready? Let's see, let's just start with your name. What is your name, although I already know? This is what, in science, is called a 'control question.'"

"Caleb," he says. He had forgotten he was Caleb, so it was strange to hear the word coming out of his mouth. It sounded a little foreign, a little distant, as if somebody else were saying it across a bad phone connection.

"And where are you from?"

"Hudsonville, Florida."

There's approval in the voice: "You see, that's interesting, because you could have just as easily said 'Malibu, California.' But you aligned yourself with your birthplace. How interesting. Let's make things even more interesting. What is your father's profession?"

"Attorney."

"Do you consider yourself an attractive person?"

"Yes."

"Do you have s.e.xual fantasies about men or women?"

"Women."

"Do you believe in evil spirits?"

"No."

There's a smile in the voice. "Interesting. Where is the friend who came to town with you?"

"I don't know."

"Where did you see him last?"

"In the tunnel. In the dark."

"What happened to him?"

There's a hesitation.

"Answer. What happened to him?"

"I don't know."

"What do you think happened to him?"

"They took him."

"Who are they?"

"Pale and sleeping."

"That's interesting. Very interesting," says the voice. "Where is your father?"

"I don't know."

"Do you trust the witch, Christine Zikry's mother?"

"No."

"Why?"

"She's a drunk."

There's a long pause. Some talking, far away.

"Do you believe that you are the key to everything, that you have the power to set whole universes in motion and bring them to a halt?" asks the voice.

"No."

"Did you know that the dead sing of you?"

"No."

"Do you believe you have the power to bring about the end of the world?"

"No."

"Well, you do."

Pain is seeping back in for (Caleb), seething deep in his left wrist and melting through his head.

Feels like a cat is chasing a mouse inside his skull, knocking things over.

Tom and Jerry.

"Open your eyes," says the voice.

Caleb does. He blinks, then sees. He's in a small, sparely furnished office. There's a steel desk, a file cabinet, a floor lamp with a Tiffany gla.s.s shade, probably (but maybe not) a fake. Caleb is lying on an ancient, stained puke-green couch. There's an ACE bandage wrapped around his aching left wrist, wound from the knuckles of his hand three-quarters of the way to his elbow. And sitting on the desk in front of him is an old-fas.h.i.+oned-looking white intercom box.

"Well, good morning," says the voice, crackling a little now as it buzzes cheerfully from the slats in the box face. "My name is Barnett DeFranklin. I'm director here. You, young man, are at the Dream Center. Welcome. We've been expecting you."

Chapter Ten.

Ron sits in his idling car, staring at the huge building in front of him. He has to lean forward to see the upper stories through his winds.h.i.+eld. It reminds him of the old VA hospital he spent all those months in, and that thought alone freezes him in his seat. The bad memories come floating back, along with that black cloud of desolation that hung over him during those long days.

He remembers the phone call to his old buddy Casey, who called him a baby killer and hung up on him. He remembers calling his old girlfriend (Cheryl was her first name, but her last name? Funny, that year and a half in the jungle she had been his beacon, tinting his every waking thought with the promise of something better. Now he can't even remember her last name . . . Walters. Cheryl Walters. But that was a whole world ago). She hadn't even bothered with the "baby killer" justification, she had simply hung up, and the next time he called back, a man had answered and said Cheryl didn't want to see him anymore. In that big hospital full of echoes, some guys were quiet; they'd just sit there and stare at their oatmeal in the morning, and their hand's would shake just slightly as they brought the spoon to their mouths, and you knew there was a horror playing itself out behind their eyes. Some guys would talk up a storm, brag and joke, then at night you'd hear them crying, wailing like babies.

In the dark of that hospital, in the glow of an exit sign, Ron wakes up. He has to take a leak. He stands up and has to steady himself with one hand on the bed-the pain meds make him dizzy-and in that minute, that pause, he happens to glance over at the bed belonging to Private Ned Felspauch. Ned's a good guy, tells funny stories at mess. He took shrapnel to the head, and his nose is messed up; otherwise he isn't that bad off. He's one of the loud ones, one of the braggers, one of the ones who's going to be okay, get a good job selling insurance or something like that and do well for himself. He's always writing letters to some blond back home with big hooters. In fact, she's one of the things he brags about most.

Looks like he fell asleep writing one of those letters tonight and the ink spilled out of his pen, because there's a big ink stain all over his sheets. Ron leans close in the dark. The exit light is red, and casts uncertain shadows, warps colors, but- Ned's mouth is gaping, open and still. The stain on his sheets isn't from ink. The razor is still in his hand, s.h.i.+ning red in the light. Ron sits back on his bed and stares. Another twenty-one-year-old, one who had seen less, might panic. He might yell, run for help, try CPR. But not Ron Bent. He's already seen enough to know a dead man when he sees one.

Ron didn't cry when he lost his hand-at least not that he remembers. He didn't cry when his number came up and he got s.h.i.+pped out; he just got drunk and packed a bag. He didn't even cry when Dirty got killed. But now, sitting on that bed in that big, dark hospital full of echoes, Ron's face gets hot, and the tears keep coming and coming and coming.

And it's not because he lost his hand.

And it's not because he hasn't had one visitor since he's been back in the States.

And it's not because Ned Felspauch is dead.

It's because Ned was supposed to be one of the ones who would be okay.

And if Ned isn't okay, maybe n.o.body will be.