The Narrows(10)

“No way. I’m not going in there.”

Matthew took a step toward the building, ran one finger down the seam between two of the large stones in the fa?ade. The pad of his fingertip was now white with stone dust. “Then maybe I’ll go in without you, Dwight.”

He sensed, more than saw, Dwight shuffle uncomfortably around him. After a few moments of silence, Dwight offered a trembling laugh. He clubbed Matthew on the back and the feel of his hand seemed to break the trance that had overtaken Matthew.

“Good one,” Dwight said. “But let’s quit dicking around.”

Matthew nodded and rubbed his eyes. “Yeah. Maybe you were right,” Matthew said, just wanting to go home now, too. That icy needling at the base of his spine had vanished. “Maybe it was a mirage.”

“Yeah.” Dwight sounded satisfied. Relieved, too. Besides, he’d gotten his goddamn deer tail…

A vision then accosted Matthew—the figure springing straight out of the shadows, its long, colorless arms extending and wrapping around Dwight, then pulling him backward into the murky, black, sunless place until they disappeared together. In this vision, the figure was no longer Matthew’s father, but some indistinct and featureless approximation of a human being. Matthew shivered at the thought.

“Okay,” Matthew said. “Let’s get out of here.”



3



Somehow, the rain managed to hold off until they reached the Crawly house. It was a modest, two-story Cape Cod that looked weather-beaten and exhausted. Shutters hung at awkward angles and the front porch slouched to the left so severely that Matthew had to remember not to leave his baseball on it, for fear that it would roll off, bound down the street, and vanish from his life altogether. The storm had wreaked havoc on the place, shoving mud up against the foundation and knocking down some of the smaller trees. His mother had attempted to sandbag the perimeter of the house, just as his father had done all those years ago when Matthew was five, but her work had been hasty and ineffectual, and there had been some flooding. Many of the sandbags had burst as well, leaving damp mounds of sawdust-colored muck in various places around the yard.

Before continuing down the block to his own house, Dwight outfitted Matthew’s hand with a wad of damp dollar bills. “Here. It’s the money for the vampire mask. Just don’t forget,” he told Matthew, staring longingly at the crumbled currency in Matthew’s hand, probably regretting his decision immediately. “I get to wear the mask, too.”

“I won’t forget.”

Dwight nodded then licked the sweat off his upper lip with a small, pink, pointed tongue. His arms were tanned and freckled and his brows knitted together as if in deep concentration.

“What is it?” Matthew asked.

“It’s where they found that boy,” Dwight said. He brushed his curly hair off his forehead and Matthew could see a finger of snot vibrating in the channel of his left nostril. “Down by the Narrows, I mean. Right down there where we saw the dead deer.”

“So?”

“What if…” Dwight’s eyes flitted furtively around before looking down at his muddy sneakers. “Forget it.”

“What?”

Dwight looked up at him. “I hear things outside my window at night.”

“What kinds of things?”

“Like someone moving around in the yard. I keep the window open and I wake up in the middle of the night, sometimes to take a piss, but then I hear someone down there. It sounds like someone moving back and forth on the gravel driveway. I look but there’s never anybody there.”

“Maybe it’s an animal,” Matthew said. “Like a raccoon or a stray cat or something.”

“It’s not.”

“Then what do you think it is?”

“I thought maybe it was Ricky Codger, or one of his jerk-off friends. But then I think about it and wonder what the hell Ricky Codger would be doing stumbling around in my backyard. One night I left Gideon out there on the porch, tied to the railing.” Gideon was Dwight’s German shepherd. “He heard the noise too, and normally he would bark and chase away any trespassers. But that night I only heard him whining. The next morning when I went to get him, he’d bitten through his leash and was hiding under the porch. He’d been really frightened.”

“Of what?” Matthew said.

Dwight shook his head. “I don’t know. Do you hear things at night?”

“No.” It was the truth.

“Okay.”

“Are you trying to scare me?” he asked Dwight.

“No.”

“You swear it?”

Dwight Dandridge spit on the ground. “I swear. God’s honest truth.”

“Okay,” Matthew said.

Suddenly, Dwight did not look like he wanted to leave. Overhead, thunder rumbled. The boys looked up at the troubled, threatening sky. When Dwight’s eyes fell on Matthew again, they were sober and the color of motor oil. “Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah.”

“Later.”

“Later.”

Dwight took off down the street, and Matthew watched him go. He was overtaken by the very adult realization that his friend was becoming sadly overweight. Not just chunky, as he’d always known Dwight Dandridge to be, but flat out fat.