“Sounds like a plan.” Crow cleared his throat again.

“And stop clearing your goddamn throat.”

“Well, dude, cut me a break. My best friend is going crackers on me and I have no freaking clue about what to say or what to do.”

Terry looked at him and for a moment a smile softened the worry lines on his face. “Being my best friend is doing a lot, believe me.”

“Pardon me while I say nothing during the awkward pause that has to follow that kind of statement.”

Terry threw a small pillow at him; Crow ducked. “I really didn’t come here to discuss my lost marbles,” he said. “I think there’s something wrong with Saul.”

“You think there’s something wrong with someone else?” Which made Terry grin again. Crow liked to see it. “But I know what you mean. Coupla times we almost had a conversation about something, but each time we get right up to it he gets spooked and bugs out.”

“Saul’s gotten really withdrawn the last couple of days. Skipped dinner last night, and those plans were made weeks ago, and blew me off again for lunch today. I talked to Rachel and she says he’s acting weird at home, too. He’s all paranoid, jumps at his own shadow. I just think something’s wrong with him.”

“You think he’s sick?”

“If I had to guess, I’d say he was more scared than sick, and believe I know the signs and symptoms.”

“Scared? Of what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe he’s seeing ghosts, too,” Crow said.

Terry shot him a look. “That a joke?”

“No—hard as it is to believe. At Henry’s funeral Saul asked me if I believed in ghosts.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“Just what you’d expect me to tell him, that of course I believed in ghosts. Let’s face it, big mon, I kind of believe in everything.”

“All this seems to have started around the time the whole Ruger-Boyd thing got going. Did he say why he was asking about ghosts?”

“No. Not yet, anyway. Maybe this is not about ghosts, bro. Maybe this is like some kind of mass hysteria. Like a town wide case of post-traumatic stress disorder. With the blight, the Ruger thing…everyone’s genuinely freaked, and for good reason. Happy suburbia doesn’t really prepare folks for this kind of stuff.”

“No kidding. Really?”

Crow grinned. He sipped his tea and said, “Terry…there’s something else I want to talk to you about. You know that reporter, Newton from Black Marsh? The one you hate?”

“How could I forget?”

“Well, he’s working on a feature piece about the town’s haunted history, hoping to sell it to one of the Sunday color supplements like Parade. Anyway, he came out to the farm the other day and interviewed me and Val, and…well, I decided to tell him all about the summer of ’76. Everything…including about Griswold.”

Terry dropped his teacup and it shattered on the floor, spattering his trouser cuffs.

(6)

“How’d he take it?” Val asked.

Crow was stretched out on his couch, alone in his apartment. Through the door he could hear Mike talking to a customer, but inside the room was quiet. Muddy Whiskers was curled into a warm ball against his hip. “It could have gone better. First he just sat there in stunned silence for like a minute, minute and a half—and then he started yelling. Called me stupid, called me an insensitive asshole, called me a few other words that a week ago I would have bet a thousand dollars that he didn’t even know, and then he stormed out.”

“Smooth,” she said. “They should send you to the Middle East to see if you can work your magic there. Is he even speaking to you?”

“He’ll get over it.”

“I guess. Before that happened, he was opening up about his dreams and all that. He’s a mess, Val, but at least he’s seeing a doc, and he’s able to discuss it with me. He said that when the season is over he’s going to take Sarah and the kids to the islands for a long vacation.”

“At least that sounds hopeful rather than crazy.” She sighed. “Everyone’s under a lot of pressure right now. Mark is still acting like a jerk and Connie spends half the day crying. I’m embarrassed to say it, but they’re both starting to get on my nerves. I’d rather be alone here than have to babysit them. I do have my own stuff to deal with right now.”

“I know you do, babe. Which is why I have something planned for tonight.”

“Tonight? I told you that I had a Growers Association meeting tonight. I won’t be getting home until after eight.”

“Eight’s good.”

“What’s the plan? And don’t tell me there’s a Twilight Zone marathon on—”

“Nope, but it is a secret. You go to your meeting and I’ll see you at home.”

After she’d hung up, Crow folded his phone and laid it on his chest as he stared at the ceiling, thinking about Terry and Weinstock, Mark and Connie. And Val. Always about Val.

Ubel Griswold sends his regards. It popped into his head like a firecracker and he jumped, sitting up so fast that his cat tumbled to the floor and howled in surprise and fury and his cell phone bounced off the floor and then skittered under the couch. All at once the immense reality of what he was planning to do on Friday hit him like a fist. Friday morning—just three days from now—he was going to be going down the long slope from the Passion Pit, deep into the darkness of Dark Hollow, and through the woods to try and find the house of Ubel Griswold. On Friday the 13th.

“Jesus Christ,” he said.

Chapter 21

(1)

Crow went back in to the store and worked for a few hours while Mike sat behind the counter and finished his homework, a paper on Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Crow used the time to make a battery of phone calls related to the big Halloween celebration. He called the Dead In Drive-in to make sure all of the films had been ordered, and then called Ken Foree, the star of the original Dawn of the Dead, and went over the itinerary for the presentation he’d be giving. Then he called Brinke Stevens and chatted amiably with the “scream queen” about the talk she would be giving after the screening of a couple of her films. Then he made a conference call to his two webmasters, David Kramer and Geoff Strauss, to remind them to post only PG-13 versions of Brinke Stevens’s publicity shots on the Hayride’s Web site—not the versions the two of them had downloaded and e-mailed to him. They were crushed, but Crow reminded them that the Hayride was a family attraction, after all.

He made a call to Pittsburgh and talked with Tom Savini, and went over the budget for the makeup effects workshop he was giving at the college. Savini was going to have the workshop students do full-on monster makeup so that the whole class would look like flesh-eating zombies. The materials were expensive, but every seat had already been booked and he asked Savini to consider doing a second workshop the following day. Pine Deep was going to own Halloween, no doubt of that.

When he was done with his calls, he ordered pizza delivery and when it arrived, Mike saved his file, shut down his laptop, and the two of them taunted each other with science fiction trivia while they plowed through double-pepperoni, onion rings, and large Cokes. Customers came and went, waited on by both of them, their mouths puffed out like chipmunks around big bites of pizza.

Munching the last onion ring, Crow strolled outside for some air. Corn Hill was crammed with cars as Tuesday afternoon faded into evening and the after-work crowd mingled with a fresh tide of tourists. There was laughter everywhere and music coming from at least three bars, the happy sounds spilling out into the street. It was dark, but the street was alight with neon and the glow from hundreds of store windows. Crow leaned against the wall by his door and watched the crowd as he chewed. He took his cell phone out of his pocket and punched in the number for Saul Weinstock. It was answered on the third ring.

“Crow! I’m so glad you finally called.”

“I tried earlier but you were in a meeting, and then I got busy at the store. So, what’s the big thing you want to tell me? You’re acting very weird these days.”

“A lot of things are very weird these days,” Weinstock said softly.

“Oh good, you’re being even more cryptic.”

“Look, I need to run a few things by you. Can you come over tomorrow?”

“Can’t…I’m taking a reporter down into Dark Hollow tomorrow. He’s doing a story on the Reaper Murders and I—”

“You’re what?”

Crow explained, but Weinstock replied with a huge sigh. “You’re a moron sometimes, Crow. Jesus H. Christ. Look, I need to see you. Soon.”

“Okay. How about tomorrow night?”

“‘Night’?” Weinstock echoed. “No, I don’t think that would be good. Can you meet me at my office Saturday morning? Say, nine?”

“Sure.”

“Good. And, Crow…be careful down there. I mean it…really careful.” With that he hung up.

Crow looked at his phone “Everyone in this town is freaking nuts!”

He went back inside. The store was empty of customers and Mike was perched on the stool behind the counter just staring off into space, his eyes half-closed like a mystic in a trance, and Crow had to snap his fingers a couple of times to shake the kid out of it.

“You’re not getting weird on me, too, are you?” he said with a smile, and though Mike smiled back and shook his head, there was an odd distant and dreamy quality about him that dissipated slowly over the next hour. Crow didn’t like that, either.

At five-thirty Crow pulled on his jacket and fished for his car keys from under the counter, shooting Mike a quick glance. The kid seemed to be back to his own self again, with no trace of the odd distance in his eyes. Even so, Crow lingered at the door and said, “I’m heading out to Val’s. You going to be okay closing up tonight?”