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Then, just as I spotted it lying at the edge of a trapezoidal length of light thrown by the kitchen
window, I heard a car coming down Kossuth Street. It was moving far faster than any reasonable
driver would have dared to travel on a street that was no doubt full of children wearing masks and
carrying trick-or-treat bags. I knew who it was even before it screeched to a stop.
Inside 379, Doris Dunning was sitting on the couch with Troy while Ellen pranced around in her
Indian princess costume, wild to get going. Troy had just told her that he would help eat the candy
when she, Tugga, and Harry came back. Ellen was replying, “No, you won’t, dress up and get your
own.” Everybody would laugh at that, even Harry, who was in the bathroom taking a last-minute
whiz. Because Ellen was a real Lucille Ball who could make anybody laugh.
I snatched at the gun. It slipped through my sweat-slick fingers and landed in the grass again. My
shin was howling where I’d barked it on the side of the sandbox. On the other side of the house, a car
door slammed and rapid footsteps rattled on concrete. I remember thinking, Bar the door, Mom, that’s
not just your bad-tempered husband; that’s Derry itself coming up the walk.
I grabbed the gun, staggered upright, stumbled over my own stupid feet, almost went down again,
found my balance, and ran for the back door. The cellar bulkhead was in my path. I detoured around
it, convinced that if I put my weight on it, it would give way. The air itself seemed to have turned
syrupy, as if it were also trying to slow me down.
Even if it kills me, I thought. Even if it kills me and Oswald goes through with it and millions die. Even
then. Because this is now. This is them.
The back door would be locked. I was so sure of this that I almost tumbled off the stoop when the
knob turned and it swung outward. I stepped into a kitchen that still smelled of the pot roast Mrs.
Dunning had cooked in her Hotpoint. The sink was stacked with dishes. There was a gravy boat on the
counter; beside it, a platter of cold noodles. From the TV came a trembling violin soundtrack—what
Christy used to call “murder music.” Very fitting. Lying on the counter was the rubber Frankenstein
mask Tugga meant to wear when he went out trick-or-treating. Next to it was a paper swag-bag with
TUGGA’S CANDY DO NOT TOUCH printed on the side in black crayon.
In his theme, Harry had quoted his mother as saying, “Get out of here with that thing, you’re not
suppose to be here.” What I heard her actually say as I ran across the linoleum toward the arch
between the kitchen and the living room was, “Frank? What are you doing here?” Her voice began to
rise. “What’s that? Why have you . . . get out of here!”
Then she screamed.
12
As I came through the arch, a child said: “Who are you? Why is my mom yelling? Is my daddy here?”
I turned my head and saw ten-year-old Harry Dunning standing in the door of a small water closet
in the far corner of the kitchen. He was dressed in buckskin and carrying his air rifle in one hand.
With the other he was pulling at his fly. Then Doris Dunning screamed again. The other two boys
were yelling. There was a thud—a heavy, sickening sound—and the scream was cut off.
“No, Daddy, don’t, you’re HURRRTING her!” Ellen shrieked.
I ran through the arch and stopped there with my mouth open. Based on Harry’s theme, I had
always assumed that I’d have to stop a man swinging the sort of hammer guys kept in their toolboxes.
That wasn’t what he had. What he had was a sledgehammer with a twenty-pound head, and he was
handling it as if it were a toy. His sleeves were rolled up, and I could see the bulge of muscles that had
been built up by twenty years of cutting meat and toting carcasses. Doris was on the living room rug.
He had already broken her arm—the bone was sticking out through a rip in the sleeve of her dress—