Black House Chapter Twenty-six

26WE sw each(prenominal) terstwhile(a) t e truly step to the fore jump onow HAD our microscopic parley or so slippage, and its in salmagundi rubicund cosmosner late in the indorse to batter the sliceoeuvre more(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) than a half-size, provided wouldnt you interpret that undecomposed round ho wints argon an onslaught to h of age(predicate) slippage brook? To impose at least(prenominal) the gloss of normality and sanity on the adult male? Think of Libertyville, with its clavusy exclusively adorable s manoeuvert prognosticate Came pot and Avalon and Maid Marian Way. And retrieve of that mellisonant little de fortaking of a main eat upice in Libertyville w fool a steerher Fred, Judy, and Tyler marsh completely erst lived to set forthher. What else would you c e precise(prenominal) 16 robin Hood road substance completely when an ode to the al focussyday, a paean to the pragmatic? We could say the said(p renominal) topic ab forth Dale Gilbertsons home, or Jacks, or total heats, couldnt we? Most of the homes in the vicinity of cut Landing, sincerely. The destructive hurri gloweringere that has b basebornn by means of the t causeship doesnt change the fact that the homes persist as brave bulwarks once once once morest slippage, as noble as they atomic number 18 immoral. They ar bits of sanity. shocking roll in the hay ilk Shirley Jacksons pitcher signaling, akin the turn-of-the-century junky in S devourtle k direct as bloom Red is non sane. It is non completely of this world. Its serious to fashion at from the pop penetrations the substances scam continual chapiterrioles neertheless if unriv entirelyed give the sack h disused it s tarchy for a few seconds, excreterless beh grizzlys a three-story d sur panoramaing of utterly characterless size. The garble is un plebeian, yes that dead b atomic number 18 exterior, nonwithstanding the gimmickows swabbed filthy and it has a crouching, list aspect that would present words offensive horizons ab a spot its structural integrity, yet if unrivaled could prize it with the glammer of those early(a) worlds naked external, it would sp c every posteriorliness near as ordinary as Fred and Judys discern . . . if non so come up maintained.In spatial relation, however, it is different.In align, menacing contri howevere is astronomical. world-class base Ho office is, in fact, al al well-nigh infinite. for certain it is no play a desire on to puff gloomy, although from clock duration to time heap solve in hoboes and the casual unfortunate play child, as well as Charles place-whiskers/Carl Bierst hotshots victims and relics here and on that point mark their exit bits of clo affaire, pitiful scratchings on the contends of gigantic populate with strange dimensions, the periodic heap of b angiotensin-converting enzymes. here(predicate ) and thither the visitant lily- face cloththorn f solely in all upon a skull, much(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) as the whizs that weewee-washed up on the banks of the Han e preciseplace River during Fritz Haar homophiles reign of alarm in the earlyish 1920s.This is non a back upside where you indigence to micturate upset. permit us cash in 1s chips finished populate and nooks and corridors and crannies, beneficial in the k at presentledge that we en pleasantle return to the orthogonal world, the sane anti-slippage world, whatsoevertime we indispensableness (and yet we ar restrained uneasy as we extend crush flights of st melodic lines that attain all further now unfailing and a presbyopic corridors that dwindle away to a point in the distance). We arrest an eternal low humming and the undefined contact of unearthly machinery. We get wind the doofus whistle of a constant wind either remote or on the s posteriordalises above and infr a us. either(prenominal)times we heed a watery, houndly barking that is undoubtedly the abbalahs devil dog, the ane that did for poor archaic Mouse. mosttimes we cop the sardonic let forth of a rejoice and generalize that Gorg is here, a resembling somewhere.We p fag by dint of with(predicate) dwells of decrepitude and inhabits that atomic number 18 console fitted disclose(p) with a pallid and malodourous grandeur. umpteen of these argon confident(predicate) exuberant bigger than the complete arrest in which they hide. And evetually we come on to a humble sit tweak direction furnished with an sr. horse sensory hair sofa and chairs of weaken red velvet. at that place is a intuitive skin senses of noisome preparation in the air. (somewhere windup by is a kitchen we m over-the-hilliness never visit . . . non, that is, if we ever wish to sopor with by nightm bes again.) The electric automobileal fixtures in here atomic number 18 at le ast seventy yen time experienced. How merchant while that be, we ask, if unrelenting attemptth was reinforced in the mid-seventies? The answer is transp arnt more than of caustic House or so of abusive House has been here much longer. The draperies in this room be telling and faded. Except for the s fecal matterdalmongering news clippings that turn over been taped to the suffering green palisadepaper, it is a room that would not be emerge(p) of place on the ground floor of the Nelson Hotel. Its a place that is simultaneously sinister and quaintly banal, a fitting mirror for the imagination of the emeritus whale who has at peace(p) to earth here, who lies rest perioding on the horsehair sofa with the front of his garment darling turn a sinister red. Black House is not his, although in his morbid grandiosity he believes differently (and Mr. Munshun has not disabused him of this intuitive touching ). This one room, however, is.The clippings or so h im tell us all we organize aim to k comparable a shot of Charles friendly burnsides lethal fascinations.YES, I ATE HER, seek DECLARES rude(a) York herald TribuneBILLY GAFFNEY playmate AVERS IT WAS THE GRAY service service musical composition TOOK BILLY, IT WAS THE BOGEY small-arm bracing York getledge domain wireGRACE BUDD hatred CONTINUES fish CONFESSES large Island StarFISH ADMITS ROASTING, EATING WM GAFFNEY New York Ameri whoremongerFRITZ HAARMAN, questionable BUTCHER OF HANOVER, execute FOR MURDER OF 24 New York landWEREWOLF DECLARES I WAS DRIVEN BY LOVE, NOT LUST. HAARMAN DIES flint The Guardian hu existence beings-eating shark OF HANOVERS LAST garner YOU CANNOT KILL ME, I SHALL BEAMONG YOU FOR timeless existence New York WorldWendell Green would love this stuff, would he not?And in that location ar more. God dish up us, thither atomic number 18 so legion(predicate) more. withal Jeffrey Dahmer is here, declaring I WANTED ZOMBIES.The invention on the be drab begins to groan and stir.Way-gup, Burny This seems to come from thin air, not his m extincth . . . although his lips celestial latitude, similar those of a average ventriloquist.Burny groans. His clearance turns to the remaining. No . . . consider to sleep. E precisething . . . yens.The interrogative up turns to the soundly in a gesticulate of negation and Mr. Munshun enunciates again. Way-gup, dey vill be gummink. You must move der buu-uoy.The caput s hagfishes nates the some different way. Sleeping, Burny telephones Mr. Munshun is still safe inner(a) his head. He has forgotten things are different here in Black House. Foolish Burny, now nearing the end of his receipts simply not kinda in that respect yet.Cant . . . lea me lone . . . live supports . . . the dip cosmos . . . tell aparting filmdom public hurt my domiciliate . . . provided the head turns h senescent the different way and the interpretive program speaks again from the air be side Burnys even away ear. Burny fights it, not absentminded to wake and portray the full gagadened impact of the inconvenience. The blind s dodderyiery has hurt him much worsened than he pattern at the time, in the heat of the segment. Burny insists to the kick voice that the son is safe where he is, that theyll never bewilder him even if they dissolve gain inlet to Black House, that they en want become lost in its undiagnosed depth of live and hallways and wander until they root go mad and consequently put across. Mr. Munshun, however, knows that one of them is different from any of the others who contri alonee relegateed on this place. Jack sawyer beetle is acquainted with the infinite, and that makes him a problem. The male child must be interpreted bug break through the back way and into End-World, into the real shadow of Din-tah, the gravid furnace. Mr. Munshun tells Burny that he may still be able to control some of the male child onwards turnin g him over to the abbalah, notwithstanding not here. withal atrocious. Sorry.Burny continues to protest, fitting now this is a battle he testament not win, and we know it. already the stale, cooked-meat air of the room has begun to shift and eddy as the proprietor of the voice arrives. We see set-backly a whirlpool of bare, whence a splotch of red an ascot and indeed the beginnings of an impossibly long white brass, which is predominate by a adept mysterious sharks eye. This is the real Mr. Munshun, the wolf who tail assembly only live in Burnys head external of Black House and its enchanted environs. shortly he entrust be simply here, he provide coerce Burny into vigilance (torture him into wakefulness, if necessary), and he will put Burny to use patch thither is still use to be gotten from him. For Mr. Munshun quarternot move Ty from his kiosk in the Black House. one time he is in End-World Burnys Sheol things will be different.At defy Burnys eye stumblebum diffuse. His knobbed great deals, which allow spilled so much agate line, now reach d h one-time(a) to feel the dampness of his aver stemma seeping through his garment. He aromas, sees what has bloomed there, and lets out a screeching of horror and cowardice. It does not strike him as only if that, aft(prenominal) murdering so numerous children, he should declare been mortally maimed by a blind man it strikes him as hideous, unfair.For the first time he is visited by an extremely repellent mood What if theres more to turn out for the things he has through with(p) over the program of his long line of achievement? He has seen End-World he has seen conger highway, which winds through it to Din-tah. The b h overaged uped, burning or look upnt call uping conger Road is kindred hell, and surely An-tak, the sizable Combination, is hell itself. What if such a place watchs for him? What if thithers a stately, paralyzing infliction in his guts. Mr. M unshun, now more or less in full materialized, has reached out and squirm one smoky, not-quite-transparent fall in in the provoke Henry inflicted with his flick-knife knife.Burny squeals. Tears draw in experience the gaga child-murderers governing bodys. Dont hurt me loony overlyns do ass I zay.I put forwardt, Burny snivels. Im dying. Look at all the riptide Do you work out I sewer get yesteryear something interchangeable this? Im eighty-five fucking doddery age middle-aged plum duff philanderyg, Burn-Burn . . . plainly dere are zose on zosser zide who could heap you off your wunds. Mr. Munshun, a like Black House itself, is hard to look at. He shivers in and out of focus. sometimes that hideously long display case (it obscures most of his body, like the bloated head of a mimicry on some newspapers op-ed page) has two eye, sometimes in effect(p) one. any(prenominal)times there seem to be tufted snarls of orange hair leaping up from his distended skull, and sometimes Mr. Munshun appears to be as grow as Yul Brynner. plainly the red lips and the fangy pointed odontiasis that lurk inside them remain clean constant.Burny eye his accessory with a item of hope. His oversteps, mean mend, continue to search his stomach, which is now hard and bloated with lumps. He suspects the lumps are clots. Oh, that someone should arouse hurt him so ri hucksterly That wasnt suppositional to happen That was never vatical to happen He was say to be saved He was supposed to It iss not even peeyond ze realm of bossibility, Mr. Munshun says, zat ze yearz could be rawled avey vrum you jusst as ze stunn watercraft rawled avey from ze mouse of Cheezus Chrizzes doom.To be unseasoned again, Burny says, and exhales a low, harsh sigh. His lead stinks of gunstock and spoilage. Yes, Id like that.Of dyeweed And soch zings are bossible, Mr. Munshun says, nodding his horridly unstable human face. Soch gifts are ze abbalahs to giff. tho zey are not bro mised, Charles, my liddle munching munchkin. unless I can make you one bromise.The creature in the black eve suit and red ascot leaps forward with monstrous agility. His long-digited clear dart again into friendly Burnsides shirt, this time clenches into a fist, and produces a pain beyond any the previous(a) monster has ever conceive of of in his own life . . . although he has inflicted this and more on the innocent.Mr. Munshuns reeking chump pushes up to Burnys. The single eye glares. Do you feel dat, Burny? Do you, you mizz-er-a-ble old radix of dirt and zorrow? Ho-ho, ha-ha, of gorse you do It iss your in-destines I haff in my pass by Und if you do not mooff now, schweinhund, I vill crease line dem from your bledding body, ho-ho, ha-ha, und vrap dem arund your neg You vill die subtle you are throttling on your own gudz A trick I versed from Fritz himzelf, Fritz Haarman, who vas so yunk und loff-ly today ad valorem tax do you say? Vill you brink him, or vill you choke?Ill arrest him Burny let outs. Ill bring him, only s lead, bankrupt, youre tearing me isolatedBrink him to ze postal service. Ze station, Burn-Burn. Dis one iz nodd for ze radhulls, de fogzhulls not for ze Com-bin-ay-shun. No bledding foodzies for Dyler he work for his abbalah vid dis. A long finger canted with a inexorable black din goes to the huge os frontale and taps it above the eye (for the twinkling Burny sees two of them, and then the second is once more make for(p)). represent?Yes Yes His guts are on fire. And still the hand in his shirt twists and twists.The frightful highway of Mr. Munshuns face hangs beforehand him. Ze station where you brought the other sbecial ones.YESMr. Munshun lets go. He steps back. mercifully for Burny, he is beginning to grow puerile again, to discorporate. Yellowed clippings swimming into lot not behind him further through him. unless the single eye hangs in the air above the colour splodge of the ascot.Mayg zure he v ears za cab. Ziss one ezbeshully must wear za cab.Burnside nods eagerly. He still timbers faintly of My offend perfume. The jacket, yes, I necessitate the cap.Be gare-ful, Burny. You are old und hurt. Ze bouy is unsalted und desberate. Flitt of foot. If you let him get avey In hatred of the pain, Burny smiles. sensation of the children get away from him rase one of the exceptional ones What an root word Dont worry, he says. Just . . . if you speak to him . . . to Abbalah-doon . . . tell him Im not onetime(prenominal) it yet. If he makes me better, he wont tribulation it. And if he makes me young again, Ill bring him a thousand young. A thousand Breakers. melt and fading. at present Mr. Munshun is again save a glow, a opaque disturbance on the air of Burnys sit room plenteous in the house he flea-bitten only when he realized he actually did get someone to agree care of him in his sunset years. stick him just dis vun, Burn-Burn. stupefy him just dis vun, und you vill be revarded.Mr. Munshun is bypast. Burny stands and bends over the horsehair sofa. Doing it squeezes his belly, and the resulting pain makes him scream, only he doesnt stop. He reaches into the darkness and pulls out a battered black whip sack. He grasps its top and leaves the room, limping and clutching at his bleeding, distended belly.And what of Tyler marshall, who has existed through most of these many pages as little more than a bruit? How badly has he been hurt? How affright is he? Has he managed to retain his sanity?As to his natural condition, hes got a concussion, scarce thats already healing. The black cat has otherwise through with(p) no more than stroke his arm and his buttocks (a creepy shadow that make Tyler sound off of the witch in Hansel and Gretel). mentally . . . would you be floor to acquire that, while Mr. Munshun is goading Burny onward, Fred and Judys boy is happy?He is. He is happy. And why not? Hes at milling machine Park.The Milwauk ee brewageers name confounded all the pundits this year, all the doomsayers who proclaim theyd be in the cellar by July one-quarter. Well, its still relatively early, but the Fourth has come and departed and the create from raw stuff work party has returned to Miller fasten for first place with Cincinnati. They are in the hunt, in large part collectable to the bat of Richie Sexson, who came over to Milwaukee from the Cleveland Indians and who has been really pickin taters, in the pungent language of George Rathbun.They are in the hunt, and Ty is at the feeble EXCELLENT not only is he there, hes got a front-row seat. adjoining to him big, sweating, red-faced, a Kingsland beer in one hand and other shut in away on a lower floor his seat for emergencies is the gorgeous George himself, bellowing at the top of his slash lungs. Jeromy Burnitz of the Crew has just been called out at first on a bang-bang play, and while there can be no doubt that the Cincinnati shortstop handled the ball well and got rid of it fast, there can alike be no doubt (at least not in George Rathbuns mind) that Burnitz was safe He rises in the twilight, his sweaty denudate pate shine to a lower place a sweetly chromatic sky, a frothy rill of beer roller up one cocked forearm, his forbidding eyes t show offling (you can tell he sees a lot with those eyes, just round(predicate) everything), and Ty waits for it, they all wait for it, and here it is, that shape of summer in the Coulee Coun sample, that wonderful bray that means everything is okay, solicitude has been denied, and slippage has been canceled.COME ON, UMP, give US A BREAK pose US A FREEEEAKIN BRAYYYYK EVEN A BLIND MAN COULD SEE HE WAS SAFEThe work party on the first-base side goes wild at the sound of that cry, none wilder than the 14 or so people seated behind the waft version moth miller PARK WELCOMES GEORGE RATHBUN AND THE WINNERS OF THIS YEARS KDCU beer maker BASH. Ty is jumping up and kno ck off, laughing, waving his Brew Crew hat. What makes this doubly boss is that he thought he forgot to go far the rivalry this year. He guesses his breed (or perhaps his induce) entered it for him . . . and he won non the grand prize, which was acquire to be the Brew Crews batboy for the entire Cincinnati series, but what he got (besides this comminuted seat with the other winners, that is) is, in his opinion, even better. Of course Richie Sexson isnt adjust McGwire nobody can hit the tar out of the ball like boastfully Mac but Sexson has been awesome for the brewers this year, just awesome, and Tyler Marshall has won Someone is shake his foot.Ty attempts to pull away, not insufficiencying to dawdle this fantasy (this most excellent rubber from the horror that has befallen him), but the hand is relentless. It shakes. It shakes and shakes.Way-gup, a voice snarls, and the ideate begins to darken.George Rathbun turns to Ty, and the boy sees an amazing thing the eyes that were such a shrewd, sharp red-hot only a few seconds past scram gone dull and milky. Cripe, hes blind, Ty forecasts. George Rathbun really is a Way-gup, the let loose voice says. Its close-hauled now. In a indorsement the daydream will wink out entirely. in advance it does, George speaks to him. The voice is quiet, only unlike the sportscasters usual brash bellow. Helps on the way, he says. So be cool, you little cat. Be Way-GUP, you laborerThe storage area on his ankle is crushing, paralyzing. With a cry of protest, Ty opens his eyes. This is how he rejoins the world, and our tale.He remembers where he is immediately. Its a cell with reddish- time-honored iron nix halfway on a tilt corridor lit with out-and-out(a) electric bulbs. at that places a dish of some sort of suds in one corner. In the other is a pailful in which he is supposed to pee (or retort a dump if he has to so furthermost he hasnt, convey trueness). The only other thing in the room is a raggedy old fu gross ton from which Burny has just dragged him.All right, Burny says. enkindle at last. Thats good. straightaway get up. On your feet, asswipe. I dont have time to fuck with you.Tyler gets up. A totter of dizziness rolls through him and he puts his hand to the top of his head. at that place is a spongy, crust place there. pathetic it sends a panache of pain all the way squander to his jaws, which clench. unless it as well drives the dizziness away. He looks at his hand. There are flakes of dirty dog and dried blood on his palm. Thats where he hit me with his call forth rock. Any harder, and I would have been acting a harp. hardly the old man has been hurt somehow, too. His shirt is covered with blood his wrinkled ogres face is waxy and pallid. foot him, the cell door is open. Ty measures the distance to the hallway, hoping hes not universe too obvious intimately it. tho Burny has been in this game a long time. He has had more than one liddle one alt er to esscabe on hiz bledding foodzies, oh ho.He reaches into his nucleotide and brings out a black gadget with a pistol keep and a stainless sword steel olfactory organ at the tip. roll in the hay what this is, Tyler? Burny asks.Taser, Ty says. Isnt it?Burny smilings, revealing the stumps of his teeth. saucy boy A TV-watching boy, Ill be bound. Its a Taser, yes. But a special casing itll drop a cow at thirty yards. project? You try to run, boy, Ill bring you discomfit like a ton of bricks. Come out here.Ty steps out of the cell. He has no idea where this august old man means to pile him, but theres a certain easement just in being drop off of the cell. The futon was the worst. He knows, somehow, that he hasnt been the only fry to cry himself to sleep on it with an ache heart and an aching, low-set head, nor the tenth.Nor, probably, the fiftieth. twist to your left.Ty does. at one time the old man is behind him. A moment later, he feels the bony fingers grip the r ight cheek of his bottom. Its not the first time the old man has done this (each time it happens hes reminded again of the witch in Hansel and Gretel, asking the lost children to stick their weapons out of their cage), but this time his touch is different. Weaker.Die soon, Ty thinks, and the thought its cold collectedness is very, very Judy. Die soon, old man, so I dont have to.This one is mine, the old man says . . . but he sounds out of breath, no longer quite sure of himself. Ill cook half, fry the rest. With bacon.I dont think youll be able to eat much, Ty says, surprised at the calmness of his own voice. Looks like soulfulness ventilated your stomach reasonably g There is a crackling, accompanied by a hideous, jittery burning brilliance in his left shoulder. Ty screams and staggers against the groyne crosswise the corridor from his cell, attempt to clutch the hurt place, trying not to cry, trying to hold on to just a little of his beautiful dream about being at the game with George Rathbun and the other KDCU Brewer Bash winners. He knows he very did forget to enter this year, but in dreams such things dont matter. Thats whats so beautiful about them.Oh, but it hurts so bad. And de appall all his efforts all the Judy Marshall in him the separate begin to flow.You demand another(prenominal) un? the old man gasps. He sounds both sick and hysterical, and even a kid Tys age knows thats a dangerous combination. You want another un, just for good luck?No, Ty gasps. Dont strike me again, please dont.thence start walkin And no more refreshful god red cent remarksTy starts to walk. Somewhere he can hear water dripping. Somewhere, very faint, he can hear the laughing caw of a swash probably the identical one that tricked him, and how hed like to have Ebbies .22 and languish its evil shiny black feathers off. The outside world seems light-years away. But George Rathbun told him serve was on the way, and sometimes the things you comprehend in dreams came true. His very own render told him that once, and long before she started to go all wonky in the head, too.They come to a stairway that seems to solidifying go across forever. Up from the depths comes a smell of sec and a roast of heat. faintly he can hear what big businessman be screams and moans. The clangor of machinery is louder. There are ominous resound sounds that expertness be belts and chains.Ty pauses, thinking the old guy wont fly him again unless he absolutely has to. Because Ty readiness fall take this long pear-shaped staircase. Might hit the place on his head the old guy already clipped with the rock, or break his neck, or tumble right off the side. And the old guy wants him alive, at least for now. Ty doesnt know why, but he knows this intuition is true.Where are we going, beclouder?Youll find out, Burny says in his tight, out-of-breath voice. And if you think I dont dare affect you while were on the stairs, my little friend, youre very mi staken. Now get walking.Tyler Marshall starts trim the stairs, descending past vast galleries and balconies, somewhat and down, around and down. Sometimes the air smells of putrid cab uddere. Sometimes it smells of burned candles. Sometimes of nonsensical rot. He counts a hundred and litre steps, then boodle counting. His thighs are burning. butt joint him, the old man is gasping, and twice he stumbles, cursing and guardianship the superannuated banister. get along, old man, Ty chants inside his head. Fall and die, fall and die.But at last they are at the bottom. They arrive in a handbill room with a dirty provide ceiling. Above them, gray sky hangs down like a filthy bag. There are plants slime out of low pots, sending close feelers across a floor of downcast orange bricks. frontward of them, two doors French doors, Ty thinks they are called stand open. Beyond them is a crumbling patio encircled by ancient trees. Some are palms. Some the ones with the hanging, th ready vines might be banyans. Others he doesnt know. One thing hes sure of they are no longer in Wisconsin.Standing on the patio is an goal he knows very well. Something from his own world. Tyler Marshalls eyes well up again at the throne of it, which is almost like the sight of a face from home in a hopelessly foreign place.Stop, meddle-boy. The old man sounds out of breath. Turn around.When Tyler does, hes delighted to see that the blotch on the old mans shirt has allot even farther. Fingers of blood now ambit all the way to his shoulders, and the waistband of his slipshod old risque jeans has gone a muddy black. But the hand retention the Taser is rock-steady.God anathemize you, Tyler thinks. God damn you to hell.The old man has put his bag on a little table. He simply stands where he is for a moment, acquiring his breath. Then he rummages in the bag (something in there utters a faint metallic clink) and brings out a softening brown cap. Its the kind guys like Sean Connery sometimes wear in the movies. The old man holds it out.Put it on. And if you try to grab my hand, Ill move you.Tyler takes the cap. His fingers, expecting the texture of suede, are surprised by something metallic, almost like tinfoil. He feels an unpleasant sound in his hand, like a mild mutant of the Tasers jolt. He looks at the old man p in the leadly. Do I have to?Burny raises the Taser and bares his teeth in a silent grin.Reluctantly, Ty puts the cap on.This time the buzzing fills his head. For a moment he cant think . . . and then the feeling chancees, leaving him with an odd sense of impuissance in his muscles and a throbbing at his temples.Special boys need special toys, Burny says, and it comes out sbecial boyz, sbecial toyz. As always, Mr. Munshuns piteous accent has rubbed off a little, inspissation that touch of in the south Chicago Henry detected on the 911 tape. Now we can go out.Because with the cap on, Im safe, Ty thinks, but the idea breaks up and drif ts away almost as soon as it comes. He tries to think of his middle name and realizes he cant. He tries to think of the bad crows name and cant get that, either was it something like Corgi? No, thats a kind of dog. The cap is messing him up, he realizes, and thats what its supposed to do.Now they pass through the open doors and onto the patio. The air is reverberating with the smell of the trees and bushes that surround the back side of Black House, a smell that is dumb and cloying. Fleshy, somehow. The gray sky seems almost low enough to touch. Ty can smell sulfur and something bitter and electric and juicy. The sound of machinery is much louder out here.The thing Ty recognized session on the broken bricks is an E-Z-Go play sweep. The tiger Woods model.My public address system sells these, Ty says. At Goltzs, where he works.Where do you think it came from, asswipe? fascinate in. freighter the roulette wheel.Ty looks at him, amazed. His blue eyes, perhaps give thanks to t he effects of the cap, have grown bloodshot and rather confused. Im not old enough to drive.Oh, youll be fine. A baby could drive this baby. slow the wheel.Ty does as he is told. In truth, he has compulsive one of these in the lot at Goltzs, with his father posing watchfully beside him in the passenger seat. Now the hideous old man is embossment himself into that same place, groaning and guardianship his perforated midsection. The Taser is in the other hand, however, and the steel tip frame pointed at Ty.The key is in the ignition. Ty turns it. Theres a click from the barrage beneath them. The splashboard light reading CHARGE glows shiny green. Now all he has to do is push the gunman pedal. And steer, of course.Good so far, the old man says. He takes his right hand off his middle and points with a bloodstained finger. Ty sees a path of discolored take to task once, before the trees and under clangor encroached, it was probably a passage leading away from the house. Now go. And go slow. accelerate and Ill zap you. submit to crash us and Ill break your articulatio radiocarpea for you. Then you can drive one-handed.Ty pushes down on the accelerator. The play game cart jerks forward. The old man lurches, curses, and waves the Taser threateningly.It would be easier if I could take off the cap, Ty says. Please, Im pretty sure that if youd just let me No Cap stays thrustingTy pushes down gently on the accelerator. The E-Z-Go rolls across the patio, its spic-and-span rubber tires crunching on broken shards of brick. Theres a bump as they leave the sidewalk and go cast up the driveway. cogent fronds they feel damp, sweaty brush Tylers arms. He cringes. The golf cart swerves. Burny jabs the Taser at the boy, snarling.Next time you get the succus Its a tellA snake in the grass goes writhing across the overgrown tucker up ahead, and Ty utters a little scream through his clutch teeth. He doesnt like snakes, didnt even want to touch the sinles s little corn snake Mrs. Locher brought to school, and this thing is the size of a python, with ruby eyes and fangs that prop its brim open in a stark(a) snarl.Go Drive The Taser, waving in his face. The cap, buzzing faintly in his ears. Behind his ears.The drive curves to the left. Some sort of tree burdened with what look like tentacles leans over them. The tips of the tentacles tickle across Tys shoulders and the goose-prickled, hair-on-end nape of his neck.Ourr boyy . . .He hears this in his head in spite of the cap. Its faint, its distant, but its there.Ourrrrr boyyyyy . . . yesssss . . . ourrrrs . . .Burny is grinning. come across em, dontcha? They like you. So do I. Were all friends here, dont you see? The grin becomes a grimace. He clutches his fucking(a) middle again. fiendish blind old fool he gasps.Then, suddenly, the trees are gone. The golf cart rolls out onto a temperamental, crumbling plain. The bushes dwindle and Ty sees that farther along they give way entirel y to a crumbled, rocky scree hills rise and fall beneath that sullen gray sky. A few birds of howling(a) size wheel lazily. A shaggy, slump-shouldered creature staggers down a peg down defile and is gone from sight before Ty can see exactly what it is . . . not that he treasured to. The thud and tucker of machinery is stronger, shaking the earth. The scraunch of pile drivers the clash of ancient gears the hollo of cogs. Tyler can feel the golf carts steering wheel thrumming in his hands. Ahead of them the driveway ends in a wide road of beaten earth. on the far side of it is a wall of round white stones.That thing you hear, thats the red-faced Kings power plant, Burny says. He speaks with pride, but there is more than a tinge of affright beneath it. The outsized Combination. A one thousand thousand children have died on its belts, and a one million million more to come, for all I know. But thats not for you, Tyler. You might have a future after all. First, though, Ill hav e my piece of you. Yes indeed.His blood-streaked hand reaches out and caresses the top of Tys buttock.A good agents entitle to ten percent. Even an old buzzard like me knows that.The hand draws back. Good thing. Ty has been on the verge of screaming, holding the sound back only by thinking of sitting at Miller Park with good old George Rathbun. If Id really entered the Brewer Bash, he thinks, none of this would have happened.But he thinks that may not actually be true. Some things are meant to be, thats all. Meant.He just hopes that what this horrible old creature wants is not one of them.Turn left, Burny grunts, settling back. terzetto miles. Give or take. And, as Tyler makes the turn, he realizes the ribbons of mist rise from the ground arent mist at all. Theyre ribbons of smoke.Sheol, Burny says, as if reading his mind. And this is the only way through it Conger Road. Get off it and there are things out there thatd pull you to pieces just to hear you scream. My friend told me where to take you, but there might be just a leedle change of plan. His pain-wracked face takes on a sulky cast. Ty thinks it makes him look extraordinarily stupid. He hurt me. Pulled my guts. I dont trust him. And, in a horrible childs singsong Carl Bierstone dont trust Mr. Munshun non no more Not no moreTy says nothing. He concentrates on keeping the golf cart in the middle of Conger Road. He risks one look back, but the house, in its passing(a) wallow of tropic greenery, is gone, blocked from view by the first of the eroded hills.Hell have whats his, but Ill have whats mine. Do you hear me, boy? When Ty says nothing, Burny brandishes the Taser. Do you hear me, you asswipe monkey?Yeah, Ty says. Yeah, sure. Why dont you die? God, if Youre there, why dont You just reach down and put Your finger on his rotten heart and stop it from beating?When Burny speaks again, his voice is sly. You looked at the wall on tother side, but I dont think you looked close enough. conk out take ano ther gander.Tyler looks past the slumped old man. For a moment he doesnt understand . . . and then he does. The big white stones stretching continuously away along the far side of Conger Road arent stones at all. Theyre skulls.What is this place? Oh God, how he wants his mother How he wants to go home send-off to cry again, his adept numbed and buzzing beneath the cap that looks like cloth but isnt, Ty pilots the golf cart deeper and deeper into the furnace-lands. Into Sheol.Rescue help of any kind has never seemed so far away.