by Peter Straub
“About twenty feet ahead, another surprise jumped up at me out of the darkness. Something that looked like a little tiny shack began to take shape, and I got down on my hands and knees to crawl toward the path when I saw a long silver gleam along the top of the thing. That meant it had to be metal—tar paper might have a lot of uses, but it never yet reflected starlight. Once I realized that the thing in front of me was metal, I remembered its shape and realized it was a car. You wouldn’t think you’d come across a car in a down-and-out rathole like The Backs, would you? People like that, they don’t even own two shirts, so how do they come by cars? Then I remembered Dr. Garland speeding away down Meridian Road, and I thought, You don’t have to live in The Backs to drive there. Someone could turn up onto the path, drive around the loop, pull his car off onto the grass, and no one would ever see it or know that he was there.”
“And this made me feel funny. The car probably belonged to someone I knew. Our band played dances and parties all over the county and everywhere in Woodland, and I’d probably seen every single person in town, and they’d seen me, too, and knew me by name. I walked closer to the car to see if I recognized it, but it was just an old black Model T. There must have been twenty cars just like it in Woodland. Whites and coloreds, the few coloreds that owned cars, both had them. And when I got right up beside the Model T, I saw what Dee had left for me on the hood—an apple.”
“About twenty feet farther along, there was an apple on top of a big old stone. He was putting those apples where I couldn’t help but see them. The third one was on top of a post at the edge of the woods, and it was so pale it looked almost white. Next to the post one of those paths led back into the woods. If it hadn’t been for that apple, I would have gone right past it.”
“At least I didn’t have to worry so much about making noise once I got back into the woods. Must have been six inches of pine needles and fallen leaves underfoot, and I walked so quiet I could have been floating—I’ve worn crepe soles ever since then, and for the same reason. You walk soft. But I was still plenty scared—back in the woods there was a lot less light, and I’d have to step on an apple to see it. All I wanted was to find Dee and persuade him to get out of there.”
“For a while, all I did was keep moving between the trees and try to make sure I wasn’t coming up on a shack. Every now and then, a faint, slurry voice came from somewhere off in the woods, but I didn’t let it spook me. Then, way up ahead, I saw Dee Sparks. The path didn’t go in a straight line, it kind of angled back and forth, so I didn’t have a good clear look at him, but I got a flash of that silvery-looking sheet way off through the trees. If I sped up I could get to him before he did anything stupid. I pulled my costume up a little farther toward my neck and started to jog.”
“The path started dipping downhill. I couldn’t figure it out. Dee was in a straight line ahead of me, and as soon as I followed the path downhill a little bit, I lost sight of him. After a couple more steps, I stopped. The path got a lot steeper. If I kept running, I’d go ass over teakettle. The woman made another terrible sound, and it seemed to come from everywhere at once. Like everything around me had been hurt. I damn near came unglued. Seemed like everything was dying. That Halloween stuff about horrible creatures wasn’t any story, man, it was the way things really were—you couldn’t know anything, you couldn’t trust anything, and you were surrounded by death. I almost fell down and cried like a baby boy. I was lost. I didn’t think I’d ever get back home.”
“Then the worst thing of all happened.”
“I heard her die. It was just a little noise, more like a sigh than anything, but that sigh came from everywhere and went straight into my ear. A soft sound can be loud, too, you know, be the loudest thing you ever heard. That sigh about lifted me up off the ground, about blew my head apart.”
“I stumbled down the path, trying to wipe my eyes with my costume, and all of a sudden I heard men’s voices from off to my left. Someone was saying a word I couldn’t understand over and over, and someone else was telling him to shut up. Then, behind me, I heard running—heavy running, a man. I took off, and right away my feet got tangled up in the sheet and I was rolling downhill, hitting my head on rocks and bouncing off trees and smashing into stuff I didn’t have any idea what it was. Biff bop bang slam smash clang crash ding dong. I hit something big and solid and wound up half-covered in water. Took me a long time to get upright, twisted up in the sheet the way I was. My ears buzzed, and I saw stars—yellow and blue and red stars, not real ones. When I tried to sit up, the blasted sheet pulled me back down, so I got a faceful of cold water. I scrambled around like a fox in a trap, and when I finally got so I was at least sitting up, I saw a slash of real sky out the corner of one eye, and I got my hands free and ripped that hole in the sheet wide enough for my whole head to fit through it.”
“I was sitting in a little stream next to a fallen tree. The tree was what had stopped me. My whole body hurt like the dickens. No idea where I was. Wasn’t even sure I could stand up. Got my hands on the top of the fallen tree and pushed myself up with my legs—blasted sheet ripped in half, and my knees almost bent back the wrong way, but I got up on my feet. And there was Dee Sparks, coming toward me through the woods on the other side of the stream.”
“He looked like he didn’t feel any better than I did, like he couldn’t move in a straight line. His silvery sheet was smearing through the trees. Dee got hurt, too, I thought—he looked like he was in some total panic. The next time I saw the white smear between the trees it was twisting about ten feet off the ground. No, I said to myself, and closed my eyes. Whatever that thing was, it wasn’t Dee. An unbearable feeling, an absolute despair, flowed out from it. I fought against this wave of despair with every weapon I had. I didn’t want to know that feeling. I couldn’t know that feeling—I was eleven years old. If that feeling reached me when I was eleven years old, my entire life would be changed, I’d be in a different universe altogether.”
“But it did reach me, didn’t it? I could say no all I liked, but I couldn’t change what had happened. I opened my eyes, and the white smear was gone.”
“That was almost worse—I wanted it to be Dee after all, doing something crazy and reckless, climbing trees, running around like a wild man, trying to give me a big whopping scare. But it wasn’t Dee Sparks, and it meant that the worst things I’d ever imagined were true. Everything was dying. You couldn’t know anything, you couldn’t trust anything, we were all lost in the midst of the death that surrounded us.”
“Most people will tell you growing up means you stop believing in Halloween things—I’m telling you the reverse. You start to grow up when you understand that the stuff that scares you is part of the air you breathe.”
“I stared at the spot where I’d seen that twist of whiteness, I guess trying to go back in time to before I saw Dr. Garland fleeing down Meridian Road. My face looked like his, I thought—because now I knew that you really could see a ghost. The heavy footsteps I’d heard before suddenly cut through the buzzing in my head, and after I turned around and saw who was coming at me down the hill, I thought it was probably my own ghost I’d seen.”
“Eddie Grimes looked as big as an oak tree, and he had a long knife in one hand. His feet slipped out from under him, and he skidded the last few yards down to the creek, but I didn’t even try to run away. Drunk as he was, I’d never get away from him. All I did was back up alongside the fallen tree and watch him slide downhill toward the water. I was so scared I couldn’t even talk. Eddie Grimes’s shirt was flapping open, and big long scars ran all across his chest and belly. He’d been raised from the dead at least a couple of times since I’d seen him get killed at the dance. He jumped back up on his feet and started coming for me. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.”
“Eddie Grimes took another step toward me, and then he stopped and looked straight at my face. He lowered the knife. A stink of sweat and alcohol came off him. All he could do was stare at me. Eddie Grimes k
new my face all right, he knew my name, he knew my whole family—even at night, he couldn’t mistake me for anyone else. I finally saw that Eddie was actually afraid, like he was the one who’d seen a ghost. The two of us just stood there in the shallow water for a couple more seconds, and then Eddie Grimes pointed his knife at the other side of the creek.”
“That was all I needed, baby. My legs unfroze, and I forgot all my aches and pains. Eddie watched me roll over the fallen tree and lowered his knife. I splashed through the water and started moving up the hill, grabbing at weeds and branches to pull me along. My feet were frozen, and my clothes were soaked and muddy, and I was trembling all over. About halfway up the hill, I looked back over my shoulder, but Eddie Grimes was gone. It was like he’d never been there at all, like he was nothing but the product of a couple of good raps to the noggin.”
“Finally, I pulled myself shaking up over the top of the rise, and what did I see about ten feet away through a lot of skinny birch trees but a kid in a sheet facing away from me into the woods, and hopping from foot to foot in a pair of big clumsy shoes? And what was in front of him but a path I could make out from even ten feet away? Obviously, this was where I was supposed to turn up, only in the dark and all I must have missed an apple stuck onto a branch or some blasted thing, and I took that little side trip downhill on my head and wound up throwing a spook into Eddie Grimes.”
“As soon as I saw him, I realized I hated Dee Sparks. I wouldn’t have tossed him a rope if he was drowning. Without even thinking about it, I bent down and picked up a stone and flung it at him. The stone bounced off a tree, so I bent down and got another one. Dee turned around to find out what made the noise, and the second stone hit him right in the chest, even though it was his head I was aiming at.”
“He pulled his sheet up over his face like an Arab and stared at me with his mouth wide open. Then he looked back over his shoulder at the path, as if the real me might come along at any second. I felt like pegging another rock at his stupid face, but instead I marched up to him. He was shaking his head from side to side. Jim Dawg, he whispered, what happened to you? By way of answer, I hit him a good hard knock on the breastbone. What’s the matter? he wanted to know. After you left me, I say, I fell down a hill and ran into Eddie Grimes.”
“That gave him something to think about, all right. Was Grimes coming after me, he wanted to know? Did he see which way I went? Did Grimes see who I was? He was pulling me into the woods while he asked me these dumb-ass questions, and I shoved him away. His sheet flopped back down over his front, and he looked like a little boy. He couldn’t figure out why I was mad at him. From his point of view, he’d been pretty clever, and if I got lost, it was my fault. But I wasn’t mad at him because I got lost. I wasn’t even mad at him because I’d run into Eddie Grimes. It was everything else. Maybe it wasn’t even him I was mad at.”
“I want to get home without getting killed, I whispered. Eddie ain’t gonna let me go twice. Then I pretended he wasn’t there anymore and tried to figure out how to get back to Meridian Road. It seemed to me that I was still going north when I took that tumble downhill, so when I climbed up the hill on the other side of the creek I was still going north. The wagon track that Dee and I took into The Backs had to be off to my right. I turned away from Dee and started moving through the woods. I didn’t care if he followed me or not. He had nothing to do with me anymore, he was on his own. When I heard him coming along after me, I was sorry. I wanted to get away from Dee Sparks. I wanted to get away from everybody.”
“I didn’t want to be around anybody who was supposed to be my friend. I’d rather have had Eddie Grimes following me than Dee Sparks.”
“Then I stopped moving, because through the trees I could see one of those grease-paper windows glowing up ahead of me. That yellow light looked evil as the devil’s eye—everything in The Backs was evil, poisoned, even the trees, even the air. The terrible expression on Dr. Garland’s face and the white smudge in the air seemed like the same thing—they were what I didn’t want to know.”
“Dee shoved me from behind, and if I hadn’t felt so sick inside I would have turned around and punched him. Instead, I looked over my shoulder and saw him nodding toward where the side of the shack would be. He wanted to get closer! For a second, he seemed as crazy as everything else out there, and then I got it: I was all turned around, and instead of heading back to the main path, I’d been taking us toward the woman’s shack. That was why Dee was following me.”
“I shook my head. No, I wasn’t going to sneak up to that place. Whatever was inside there was something I didn’t have to know about. It had too much power—it turned Eddie Grimes around, and that was enough for me. Dee knew I wasn’t fooling. He went around me and started creeping toward the shack.”
“And damnedest thing, I watched him slipping through the trees for a second, and started following him. If he could go up there, so could I. If I didn’t exactly look at whatever was in there myself, I could watch Dee look at it. That would tell me most of what I had to know. And anyways, probably Dee wouldn’t see anything anyhow, unless the front door was hanging open, and that didn’t seem too likely to me. He wouldn’t see anything, and I wouldn’t, either, and we could both go home.”
“The door of the shack opened up, and a man walked outside. Dee and I freeze, and I mean freeze. We’re about twenty feet away, on the side of this shack, and if the man looked sideways, he’d see our sheets. There were a lot of trees between us and him, and I couldn’t get a very good look at him, but one thing about him made the whole situation a lot more serious. This man was white, and he was wearing good clothes—I couldn’t see his face, but I could see his rolled-up sleeves, and his suit jacket slung over one arm, and some kind of wrapped-up bundle he was holding in his hands. All this took about a second. The white man started carrying his bundle straight through the woods, and in another two seconds he was out of sight.”
“Dee was a little closer than I was, and his sight line was clearer than mine. On top of that, he saw better at night than I did. Dee didn’t get around like me, but he might have recognized the man we’d seen, and that would be pure trouble. Some rich white man, killing a girl out in The Backs? And us two boys close enough to see him? Do you know what would have happened to us? There wouldn’t be enough left of either one of us to make a decent smudge.”
“Dee turned around to face me, and I could see his eyes behind his costume, but I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. He just stood there, looking at me. In a little bit, just when I was about to explode, we heard a car starting up off to our left. I whispered at Dee if he saw who that was. Nobody, Dee said. Now, what the hell did that mean? Nobody? You could say Santa Claus, you could say J. Edgar Hoover, it’d be a better answer than Nobody. The Model T’s headlights shone through the trees when the car swung around the top of the path and started going toward Meridian Road. Nobody I ever saw before, Dee said. When the headlights cut through the trees, both of us ducked out of sight. Actually, we were so far from the path, we had nothing to worry about. I could barely see the car when it went past, and I couldn’t see the driver at all.”
“We stood up. Over Dee’s shoulder I could see the side of the shack where the white man had been. Lamplight flickered on the ground in front of the open door. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was to go inside that place—I didn’t even want to walk around to the front and look in the door. Dee stepped back from me and jerked his head toward the shack. I knew it was going to be just like before. I’d say no, he’d say yes, and then I’d follow him wherever he thought he had to go. I felt the same way I did when I saw that white smear in the woods—hopeless, lost in the midst of death. You go, if you have to, I whispered to him, it’s what you wanted to do all along. He didn’t move, and I saw that he wasn’t too sure about what he wanted anymore.”
“Everything was different now, because the white man made it different. Once a white man walked out that door, it was like raising the stakes
in a poker game. But Dee had been working toward that one shack ever since we got into The Backs, and he was still curious as a cat about it. He turned away from me and started moving sideways in a straight line, so he’d be able to peek inside the door from a safe distance.”
“After he got about halfway to the front, he looked back and waved me on, like this was still some great adventure he wanted me to share. He was afraid to be on his own, that was all. When he realized I was going to stay put, he bent down and moved real slow past the side. He still couldn’t see more than a sliver of the inside of the shack, and he moved ahead another little ways. By then, I figured, he should have been able to see about half of the inside of the shack. He hunkered down inside his sheet, staring in the direction of the open door. And there he stayed.”
“I took it for about half a minute, and then I couldn’t anymore. I was sick enough to die and angry enough to explode, both at the same time. How long could Dee Sparks look at a dead whore? Wouldn’t a couple of seconds be enough? Dee was acting like he was watching a goddamn Hop along Cassidy movie. An owl screeched, and some man in another shack said, Now that’s over, and someone else shushed him. If Dee heard, he paid it no mind. I started along toward him, and I don’t think he noticed me, either. He didn’t look up until I was past the front of the shack, and had already seen the door hanging open, and the lamplight spilling over the plank floor and onto the grass outside.”
“I took another step, and Dee’s head snapped around. He tried to stop me by holding out his hand. All that did was make me mad. Who was Dee Sparks to tell me what I couldn’t see? All he did was leave me alone in the woods with a trail of apples, and he didn’t even do that right. When I kept on coming, Dee started waving both hands at me, looking back and forth between me and the inside of the shack. Like something was happening in there that I couldn’t be allowed to see. I didn’t stop, and Dee got up on his feet and skittered toward me.”
