(3)

Crow was half-dozing on the hood of his battered old Impala Missy, his back against the windshield and his hands folded around a cardboard cup of Irish cream coffee that rested on his stomach. He wore six-stitch boots, faded jeans, and an insulated denim vest over a bright-red plaid flannel shirt. Eight inches of frayed thermal undershirt hung down below the rolled cuffs of the shirt. He wore white plastic sunglasses with opaque black lenses and had a Phillies cap turned backward on his head. The mangled end of a brown coffee stirrer hung from the corner of his mouth like a pool-hall Jim’s matchstick.

At 7:35 Willard Fowler Newton’s ancient Civic rolled to a squeaky stop in front of the Crow’s Nest. Newton locked his Club snugly in place and got out, dressed in a blue Eddie Bauer padded jacket, 501 jeans, and Nike sneakers that had never seen the inside of a gym. Crow raised his sunglasses an inch and peered at him under the rims, one eyelid raised. “Did retro-Yuppie come back in and I miss the memo?” he asked.

Flushing a bit, Newton smoothed his jeans, and said, “Yeah, well you look like you’re in a Marlboro commercial.”

“I’m a manly man.”

“And the sunglasses?”

“Keeps me in touch with my counterculture youth.” Crow sat up and drained the last of the tepid coffee. He slid off the hood and did a hook shot that landed the cardboard container in the waste barrel that stood beside a streetlamp four feet away. “Yes! Two points, nothing but can.”

Newton applauded ironically. “Who’s driving?”

Crow looked pointedly at the squatty little Civic and then back at Missy. He said nothing. Newton fetched his gear, and they piled into the car and Crow popped a Flogging Molly CD into player. As Crow was pulling away from the curb and into the pre-business-hour flow of traffic, Newton said, “What about your store?”

“Mike’s due in at noon. He has keys. Most of the Little Halloween weirdness won’t get rolling until this afternoon, and we’ll back by then, and by tonight all the action’s going to be at the campus or the Hayride, and no one’ll be shopping. Everyone’ll be drunk. If we get delayed and the kid gets into a crunch, Val said she’d come down tonight and help with the rush.”

“Oh.” Newton opened a pack of Big Red gum and put a stick in his mouth. “I liked Val. She seemed nice.”

A smile curled the edges of Crow’s mouth as he drove. “She is.”

“She forgive me yet?”

“Time will tell,” Crow said mysteriously.

“Have you guys set a date yet?”

“We’re thinking maybe a Christmas wedding—next Christmas, I mean—but really we haven’t done that much planning yet. A bit too soon, you know?”

“I can understand that.”

The morning had dawned clear and blue and cloudless, and there was a mildly cool wind from the northeast. Crow had his window cracked and crisp air blew into the car and made their cheeks tingle. They headed down Corn Hill to A-32, turned left, and within minutes they were out in the farm country. Groves of carefully tended shade trees gave way to acre after acre of geometrically sown cornfields, many cut to stubble that late in the season, but some still swelling toward the last corn harvest in November. There were fewer houses to be seen, most of them tucked far back at the end of winding dirt roads. Here and there a roadside stand stood fully stocked and ready for the influx of Little Halloween tourists. Barrels of peaches and apples stood in ranks; tall stands of decorative cornstalks leaned in bunches, tied with lengths of hairy twine; Indian corn hung from the rafters of the stands, cheery in their browns and reds and oranges; buckets of mixed nuts stood by the cash registers near jugs of dark, rich cider; and row upon row of pumpkins waited in patient lines, some painted with spooky or cheerful faces, some precut, some untouched and pumpkin-pie ripe in the early sunlight.

“See those pumpkins?” Crow asked, pointing with his chin.

“Uh huh.”

“Imported. Most of them are from Berks County.”

“Because of the blight?”

“Yep. We can’t let it show, so on days like today—and really for the rest of the month—there has to be the appearance of prosperity and business-as-usual. Pestilence and hardship aren’t big draws for tourists.”

They drove on, heading south.

The Bone Man sat on a hay bale by the side of the road and watched the big brown Impala cruise by. All Crow and Newton saw was a line of hay bales stretching across the field, and on the one nearest to the road there were a dozen crows loitering in the morning breeze. The Bone Man knew the men couldn’t see him. He had his guitar across his lap and he strummed a few notes as the car passed. One of the birds opened its scarred and splotched beak and cawed softly.

“Mm-hm,” murmured the Bone Man, squinting in the sun’s glare. His eyes were colorless in that light. “It’s a bad business.” The crow cawed again and the Bone Man played a few more notes, clear and sweet and sad. “A very bad business. Shouldn’t be going out there, little Scarecrow. Nossir, not out there.”

In the distance, the Impala was just a fading dot.

They rolled past several signs advertising the Haunted Hayride.

PINE DEEP HAUNTED HAYRIDE

Biggest in the East Coast!

We’ll Scare you Silly!

Newton nodded to it as they passed. “The hayride? You helped design it, right?”

“Not initially, but I’ve done all the upgrades. I redid all of the traps—the spots where monsters jump out at you.”

“Thinking of putting in a Karl Ruger trap?” When he saw that Crow’s mouth had become a tight line, Newton winced, and said, “God! That was in poor taste, wasn’t it? Sorry.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you shouldn’t be allowed out in public?”

Newton sighed. “My editor tells me that all the time.”

Crow sucked his teeth and after half a mile said, “Skip it.”

They passed a wrecker. Crow tooted his horn, and the driver of the wrecker raised a single hand in response.

“Friend of yours?”

“Not really. Guy named Eddie Oswald. Everyone calls him Tow-Truck Eddie. He’s okay,” Crow said.

A couple of cars passed going the other way, including a Pine Deep police cruiser, and then Crow slowed and drifted onto the shoulder at a crossroads where a dirt road lead away from the highway, forming the division between a vast pumpkin patch to the left and on the right a cornfield that sped away into the distance seemingly without a break. The road was small, but it looked well traveled, and there were deep wheel-ruts trailing away into the distance until the road jagged left and out of sight. Crow pointed. “That cornfield is the outer edge of Val’s farm. Ruger’s car was wrecked just a half-mile down the road. This pumpkin patch over here belongs to another family, the Conleys. They’ve been hit pretty hard by the blight. Worse than just about anyone.”

“And the road?” Newton nodded down the winding dirt lane.

“This here leads down to Dark Hollow, or rather to the entrance to it. One entrance. At the top is our local Lovers’ Lane—we call it the Passion Pit. I don’t know how much love goes on down there, but I hear it gets pretty intense.”

“Gee,” Newton said dryly, “our first date and you’re taking me to Lovers’ Lane.”

“No, dipshit, I’m taking you through Lovers’ Lane. We’ll park there and then go over the pitch and down the hill to the Hollow. I looked at the old maps and the old road that used to go to Griswold’s place isn’t even marked anymore. Don’t know if it ever was, being a private road, but there’s no way I know of to get a car in there. Going over the pitch and down the slope is no picnic, but at least it’s a way that’ll get us there.” He nodded down the dirt road. “This is gonna get bumpy, so buckle up for safety, kids.” Crow put the car back into drive and steered his way carefully down the dusty dirt road. It seemed to be comprised entirely of potholes.

“Nice road,” stuttered Newton as his body fought to jump free from the seat belt.

“Thank God for shocks, huh?”

“This car has shocks?” Newton asked doubtfully.

Crow steered around a couple of sharp turns and then into a clearing that seemed to appear magically out of the dense green forest. He braked to a stop and as the dust settled, he switched off the engine. “Weeee’re hee-eere,” he said, the same way the little blond girl had said “They’re here!” in Poltergeist. Newton gave him half a smile.

The reporter looked around the clearing and frowned. “This is Dark Hollow? It doesn’t look like much.”

Jerking open the door, Crow stepped out, saying, “This is the Passion Pit I was telling you about. Yonder,” he said, pointing to the western edge of the clearing, where the pinelands were showing signs of recovering from an old forest fire, “is the pitch, and way down below is Dark Hollow. From here we walk.”

Newton had brought a small backpack filled with sandwiches, juice boxes, PowerBars, and gum; it had a water bottle strapped across the top. He also had a walking stick he’d bought at a Natural Wonders store ten years ago and had never used. Crow popped his trunk and reached inside for his gear, strapping on an army-surplus web belt—vintage Desert Storm—then hung an authentic Boy Scout canteen over his rump, clipped a long, broad-bladed machete in a flat canvas sheath on his left hip, and from his right hip he slung a holstered automatic pistol. Newton stared at it for a moment, then looked at Crow and arched an eyebrow.

“Are we invading Cuba today?”

Crow gave him a big grin.

“Are you licensed to carry that?” Newton asked, nodding at the pistol.

“Sure. Businessman’s privilege in this town.”

“Does it matter at all to you that you look completely ridiculous?”

“Who gives a shit?”

“I hadn’t looked at it from that perspective.”