From a Buick 8(41)

Huddie wanted to know if he'd been right not to call Curtis. He was worried Curt would feel left out, passed over. If the Sarge wanted, Huddle said, he could go in the barracks that very second and make a telephone call. Happy to do it.

'Curtis is fine right where he is,' Tony said, 'and when it's explained to him why he wasn't called, he'll understand. As for the rest of you fellows . . .'

Tony stepped away from the roll-up door. His posture was easy and relaxed, but his face was very pale. The sight of that thing in the corner had affected him, too, even through a pane of glass. Sandy felt the same way himself. But he could also sense Sergeant Schoondist's excitement, the balls-to-the-wall curiosity he shared with Curt. The throbbing undertone that said Holy shit, do you f**kin BELIEVE it! Sandy heard it and recognized it for what it was, although he felt none of it himself, not a single iota. He didn't think any of the others did, either. Certainly Huddie's curiosity ? and Arky's ? had faded quickly enough. 'Gone the way of the blue suede shoe,' as Curtis might have said.

'You men on duty listen up to me, now,' Tony said. He was wearing his slanted little grin, but to Sandy it looked a bit forced that night. 'There's fires in Statler, floods in Leesburg, and a rash of Piggly Wiggly robberies down in Pogus County; we suspect the Amish.'

There was some laughter at this.

'So what are you waiting for?'

'There was a general exodus of Troopers on duty followed by the sound of Chevrolet V-8 engines starting up. The off-duty fellows hung around for awhile, but nobody had to tell them to move along, move along, come on, boys, show's over. Sandy asked the Sarge if he should also saddle up and ride.

'No, Trooper,' he said. 'You're with me.' And he started briskly toward the walk-in door, pausing only long enough to examine the items Sandy had put into the carton: one of the evidence-documenting Polaroids, extra film, a yardstick, an evidence-collection kit. Sandy had also grabbed a couple of green plastic garbage bags from the kitchenette.

'Good job, Sandy.'

'Thanks, sir.'

'Ready to go in?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Scared as me, or not quite that scared?'

'I don't know.'

'Me, either. But I'm scared, all right. If I faint, you catch me.'

'Just fall in my direction, sir.'

He laughed. 'Come on. Step into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.'

Scared or not, the two of them made a pretty thorough investigation. They collaborated on a diagram of the shed interior, and when Curt later complimented Sandy on it, Sandy nodded and agreed that it had been a good one. Good enough to take into court, actually. Still, a lot of the lines on it were wavery. Their hands began to shake almost from the moment they entered the shed, and didn't stop until they were back out again.

They opened the trunk because it had been open when Arky first looked in and noticed the thing in the corner, and although it was as empty as ever, they took Polaroids of it. They likewise photo'd the thermometer (which by then had gotten all the way up to seventy degrees), mostly because Tony thought Curt would want them to. And they took pictures of the corpse in the corner, took them from every angle they could think of. Every Polaroid showed that unspeakable single eye. It was shiny, like fresh tar. Seeing himself reflected in it made Sandy Dearborn feel like screaming. And every two or three seconds, one of them would look back over his shoulder at the Buick Roadmaster.

When they were done with the photos, some of which they took with the yardstick lying beside the corpse, Tony shook out one of the garbage bags. 'Get a shovel,' he said.

'Don't you want to leave it where it is until Curt ? '

'Probationary Trooper Wilcox can look at it down in the supply closet,' Tony said. His voice was oddly tight ? strangled, almost ? and Sandy realized he was working very hard not to be sick. Sandy's own stomach took a queasy little lurch, perhaps in sympathy. 'He can look at it there to his heart's content. For once we don't have to worry about breaking the chain of evidence, because no district attorney is ever going to be involved. Meantime, we're scooping this shit up.' He wasn't shouting, but a raw little edge had come into his voice.

Sandy took a shovel from where it hung on the wall and slid the blade beneath the dead creature. The wings made a papery and somehow terrible crackling sound. Then one of them fell back, revealing a black and hairless side. For the second time since the two of them had stepped in, Sandy felt like screaming. He could not have told why, exactly, but there was something deep down in his head begging not to be shown any more.

And all the time they were smelling it. That sour, cabbagey reek.

Sandy observed sweat standing out all over Tony Schoondist's forehead in fine little dots. Some of these had broken and run down his cheeks, leaving tracks like tears.

'Go on,' he said, holding the bag open. 'Go on, now, Sandy. Drop it in there before I lose my groceries.'

Sandy tilted it into the bag and felt a little bit better when the weight slid off the shovel. After Tony had gotten a sack of the liquid-absorbing red sawdust they kept for oil-spills and sprinkled it over the gooey stain in the corner, both of them felt better. Tony twirled the top of the garbage bag with the creature inside, then knotted it. Once that was done, the two of them started backing toward the door.