From a Buick 8(54)

I took my notebook out of my breast pocket. Clicked out the tip of my ballpoint and drew this:

[graphic of a curled crescent-shaped leaf]

'It looks sort of like a smile,' the kid said.

'Like a goddam grin,' I said. 'Only there wasn't just one of them. Was hundreds. Hundreds of black grins swirling and spinning around. Some landed on the Buick's roof. Some dropped back into the trunk. Most of em went on the floor. I ran to get Tony. He came out with the video camera. He was all red in the face and muttering, 'What now, what next, what the hell, what now?' Like that. It was sort of funny, but only later on, okay? Wasn't funny at the time, believe me.

'We looked in the window. Saw the leaves scattered all across the cement floor. There were almost as many as you might have on your lawn after a big October windstorm blows through. Only by then they were curling up at the corners. Made em look a little less like grins and a little more like leaves. Thank God. And they weren't staying black. They were turning whitish-gray right in front of our eyes. And thinning. Sandy was there by then. Didn't make it in time for the lightshow, but turned up in time for the leafshow.'

Sandy said, 'Tony called me at home and asked if I could come in that evening around seven. He said that he and Curt were going to do something I might want to be in on. Anyway, I didn't wait for seven. I came in right away. I was curious.'

'It killed the cat,' Ned said, and sounded so much like his pa that I almost shivered. Then he was looking at me. 'Tell the rest.'

'Not much to tell,' I said. 'The leaves were thinning. I might be wrong, but I think we could actually see it happening.'

'You're not wrong,' Sandy said.

'I was excited. Not thinking. Ran around to the side door of the shed. And Tony, man, Tony was on me like white on rice. He grabs me around the neck in a choke-hold. "Hey," I says. "Leggo me, leggo me, police brutality!" And he tells me to save it for my gig at the Comedy Shop over in Statesboro. "This is no joke, Phil," he says. "I have good reason to believe I've lost one officer to that goddamned thing. I'm not losing another."

'I told him I'd wear the rope. I was hot to trot. Can't remember exactly why, but I was. He said he wasn't going back to get the goddam rope. I said I'd go back and get the goddam rope. He said, "You can forget the goddam rope, permission denied." So I says, "Just hold my feet, Sarge. I want to get a few of those leaves. There's some not five feet from the door. Not even close to the car. What do you say?"

'"I say you must have lost your friggin mind, everything in there is close to the car," he says, but since that wasn't exactly no, I went ahead and opened the door. You could smell it right away. Something like peppermint, only not nice. Some smell underneath it, making the one on top even worse. That cabbagey smell. Made your stomach turn over, but I was almost too excited to notice. I was younger then, okay? I got down on my stomach. Wormed my way in. Sarge has got me by the calves, and when I'm just a little way inside the shed he says, "That's far enough, Phil. If you can grab some, grab away. If you can't, get out."

'There were all kinds that had turned white, and I got about a dozen of those. They were smooth and soft, but in a bad way. Made me think of how tomatoes get when they've gone rotten under the skin. A little farther away there was a couple that were still black. I stretched out and got hold of em, only the very second I touched em, they turned white like the others. There was this very faint stinging sensation in my fingertips. Got a stronger whiff of peppermint and I heard a sound. Think I did, anyway. A kind of sigh, like the sound a soda can makes when you break the seal on the poptop.

'I started wiggling out, and at first I was doing all right, but then I ... something about the feel of those things in my hands ... all sleek and smooth like they were . . .'

For a few seconds I couldn't go on. It was like I was feeling it all over again. But the kid was looking at me and I knew he wouldn't let it go, not for love or money, so I pushed ahead. Now just wanting to get it over with.

'I panicked. Okay? Started to push backward with my elbows and kick with my feet. Summer. Me in short sleeves. One of my elbows kind of winged out and touched one of the black leaves and it hissed like . . . like I don't know what. Just hissed, you know? And sent up a puff of that peppermint-cabbage stink. Turned white. Like me touching it had given it frostbite and killed it. Thought of that later. Right then I didn't think about anything except getting the righteous f**k out of there. Scuse me, Shirley.'

'Not at all,' Shirley said, and patted my arm. Good girl. Always was. Better in dispatch than Babicki ? by a country mile ? and a whole lot easier on the eyes. I put my hand over hers and gave a little squeeze. Then I went on and it was easier than I thought it would be. Funny how things come back when you talk about them. How they get clearer and clearer as you go along.

'I looked up at that old Buick. And even though it was in the middle of the shed, had to be twelve feet away from me easy, all at once it seemed a lot closer than that. Big as Mount Everest. Shiny as the side of a diamond. I got the idea that the headlights were eyes and the eyes were looking at me. And I could hear it whispering. Don't look so surprised, kid. We've all heard it whispering. No idea what it's saying ? if it's really saying anything ? but sure, I could hear it. Only inside my head, going from the inside out. Like telepathy. Might have been imagination, but I don't think so. All of a sudden it was like I was six again. Scared of the thing under my bed. It meant to take me away, I was sure of it. Take me to wherever it had taken Ennis. So I panicked. I yelled, "Pull me, pull me, hurry up!" and they sure did. The Sarge and some other guy ? '