He kept his headlights off as he followed the red car with the two girls in it, and he kept his distance. His heart beat heavily but rhythmically, but the beat had accelerated since sundown, and it was beginning to make him nervous and agitated. His palms were sweaty and his mouth dry, and he was uncomfortably aroused, a condition of pain and not pleasure. He drove past the orange-glowing pumpkin-faces that seemed to mock him, past the eager, laughing children parading from house to house in their foolish costumes.
He remembered the clown suit he had worn that night, red and green with a lace ruff and a sock cap with a silly ball at the end of it that kept dangling in front of his nose. He remembered his grandmother's smell as she took a tuck in the material of his costume. He remembered the taste of candy com at the party that evening, remembered biting off the white tips of the pyramid-shaped candies, then the orange middle, then the yellow bottom, trying to determine if they were made of different-tasting stuff but they were the same candy dyed three different colors.
He remembered too, how in the middle of it, in the middle of ducking for apples, the feeling had come over him, a force like an iron hand that virtually shoved him out of the door and into the street, his little legs carrying him home and a voice telling him what he had to do. In his mind's eye he had seen, that night, a picture of his sister as he had seen it a few times through the keyhole of her bedroom or in the crack of the bathroom door, pink, firm, with beautiful tight buttocks and round high breasts with jutting nipples, and the voice told him he must carve those breasts and buttocks into a thousand slabs of bloody meat. He remembered his own internal voice protesting, but it was such a helpless little-boy voice the the grown-up voice had shouted it down easily and urged his little legs home faster, instructing him to go into the house through the kitchen door, remove the butcher knife from the drawer under the sink, and go upstairs.
He remembered the look in her eyes as he entered her room, a look that darkened from surprise to recognition to horror in the space of a second. He remembered the little-boy voice crying 'What are you doing?' but the grown-up voice crying 'Stick in her belly! Stick it in her heart! Stick it in her face! Stick it in her arms. Stick it in her legs! Stab her! Cut her! Slice her! Slash her! KILL HER! KILL HER! KILL HER! KILL HER! KILL HER! KILLER! KILL HER! KILL HER!'
He had known she was screaming because he saw her lips moving but he heard nothing but the roar of the grown-up voice in his ears. He remembered the heat of her blood as it splashed his hands, and the strangely familiar smell of it.
He remembered looking at her almost unrecognizable remains on the floor and hearing the little-boy voice saying, 'Uh-oh, you're gonna get in a lot of trouble when mommy and daddy get home.' And that's just what happened.
Mommy and daddy were very mad at him when they came home.
And now the voice was talking to him again, and it was almost the same way except that he was a grown-up himself now, and he was big and strong as his daddy, and this time nobody would be able to take him away and send him someplace.
The brake lights of the car in front of him went on, and he hit his own brakes, drifting to the side of the road to watch. The blond girl got out, the one who had come up to the door of his home this morning, the one who reminded him so much of Judy. He watched her go up to the white house and ring the doorbell while her friend turned into the driveway of the large house across the street and pull into a garage.
The door opened for the blond girl, and she stepped inside. Then, across the street, the dark¬ haired girl emerged from the garage, rang the doorbell, and was admitted.
He watched.
Five minutes later, a man and a woman came out of each house. The man and woman coming out of the house where the blonde had gone kissed a little boy good-bye. The man and the woman coming out of the house the dark-haired girl had gone kissed a little girl good-bye. Then each couple got into a car. They went off in different directions.
He got out of the station wagon and slid into the hedgerows around the house with the blonde and the little boy in it, the dark uniform he'd taken off the driver blending with the night shadows. He sidled up to a window. Beyond it was a darkened room, but through an open door at the other end he could see the girl who reminded him of Judy talking to the boy. The boy was almost as young as he'd been fifteen years ago. The boy was wearing a shiny jump suit with astronaut patches on it. This was the boy he'd seen bullied at school today.
He walked around the house, silently testing windows and doors, noting that a pair of French windows outside the television room were open, but not venturing in yet. Not yet.
He drifted back to the front of the house and pressed against the hedges as a gaggle of children passed by, close enough for him to grab. It was too dangerous.
When it was safe, he ventured across the street. The house was enormous, with a large porch on two sides. Again, he walked around it, looking in the windows. He saw the dark-haired girl standing before a hall mirror, brushing out her hair and chatting to the little girl who watched her admiringly. The dark-haired girl had big breasts that jutted out even with her arms stretched overhead.
He stalked like a cat to the side and back of the house, noting an unlocked kitchen door. In the backyard, a slate path led to a little house like a bungalow. He went up to it and peered inside. It had a washer and dryer.
He returned to the main house and watched some more. The sex between his legs throbbed in an unpleasant way. The voice was whispering something to him that he couldn't make out yet, but he knew that if he waited it would get louder.
In his belt were the carving knife and rope he had taken from the store in town.
"Well, what shall we do?" Laurie said, looking at her watch. She knew the answer, but hoped against hope that Tommy Doyle would suggest that he play a quiet game by himself while she studied history. Sure!
Tommy pointed to the stack of comic books in the den. "We can start with those. When we're finished, I have some more in my room."
"And what happens when we finish those?" Laurie said sarcastically.
"Well, I have a big stack of old ones in my closet," he answered solemnly.
"I thought you might," she sighed.
They sat down in a small sofa, and Laurie took a comic book off the top of the stack. "'How now,' cried Arthur..."
"What does it mean, he cried? Why is he crying?"
"He's not crying-crying, Tommy. A cry also means a shout. 'How now,' cried Arthur. 'Then none may pass this way without a fight?' 'Just so,' answered the knight in a bold and haughty manner..." She rattled the comic book. "Stop squirming. What's the matter?"
"I don't like that story."
"I thought King Arthur was your favorite?"
"Not anymore. Can you keep a secret?"
"Sure."
He fell to his hands and knees and reached under the sofa, producing another stack of
comics.
"Why are they under there?"
"Mom doesn't like me to have them."
Laurie shuffled through them. "Neutron Man, Laser Man, Tarantula Man... I can see why."
