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Jimmy Numbers was behind the wheel when they pulled into the Bretton Woods rest stop, which was
quite close to Anniston, the town where the troublesome girl lived. Only she wasn’t there. According
to Barry, she was in a town called Frazier, a little further southeast. On a picnic with her dad. Making
herself scarce. Much good it would do her.
Snake inserted the first video in the DVD player. It was called Kenny’s Poolside Adventure. “If the
kid’s watching this, she’s gonna get an education,” she said, and pushed PLAY.
Nut was sitting beside Barry and feeding him more juice . . . when he could, that was. Barry had
begun to cycle for real. He had little interest in juice and none at all in the poolside ménage à trois.
He only looked at the screen because those were their orders. Each time he came back to his solid
form, he groaned louder.
“Crow,” he said. “Get with me, Daddy.”
Crow was beside him in an instant, elbowing Walnut aside.
“Lean close,” Barry whispered, and—after one uneasy moment—Crow did as he was asked.
Barry opened his mouth, but the next cycle started before he could speak. His skin turned milky,
then thinned to transparency. Crow could see his teeth locked together, the sockets that held his painfilled
eyes, and—worst of all—the shadowy crenellations of his brain. He waited, holding a hand that
was no longer a hand but only a nestle of bones. Somewhere, at a great distance, that twanky disco
music went on and on. Crow thought, They must be on drugs. You couldn’t fuck to music like that unless you
were.
Slowly, slowly, Barry the Chink grew dense again. This time he screamed as he came back. Sweat
stood out on his brow. So did the red spots, now so bright they looked like beads of blood.
He wet his lips and said, “Listen to me.”
Crow listened.
4
Dan did his best to empty his mind so Abra could fill it. He had driven the Riv out to Cloud Gap
often enough for it to be almost automatic, and John was riding back by the caboose with the guns
(two automatic pistols and Billy’s deer rifle). Out of sight, out of mind. Or almost. You couldn’t
completely lose yourself even while you were asleep, but Abra’s presence was large enough to be a
little scary. Dan thought if she stayed inside his head long enough, and kept broadcasting at her
current power, he would soon be shopping for snappy sandals and matching accessories. Not to
mention mooning over the groovy boys who made up the band ’Round Here.
It helped that she had insisted—at the last minute—that he take Hoppy, her old stuffed rabbit. “It
will give me something to focus on,” she had said, all of them unaware that a not-quite-human
gentleman whose rube name was Barry Smith would have understood perfectly. He had learned the
trick from Grampa Flick, and used it many times.
It also helped that Dave Stone kept up a constant stream of family stories, many of which Abra had
never heard before. And still, Dan wasn’t convinced any of this would have worked if the one in charge
of finding her hadn’t been sick.
“Can’t the others do this location thing?” he had asked her.
“The lady in the hat could, even from halfway across the country, but she’s staying out of it.” That
unsettling smile had once more curved Abra’s lips and exposed the tips of her teeth. It made her look
far older than her years. “Rose is scared of me.”
Abra’s presence in Dan’s head wasn’t constant. Every now and then he would feel her leave as she
went the other way, reaching out—oh so carefully—to the one who had been foolish enough to slip