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6
Peering cautiously over the railing, Rose saw Abra disappear. Little bitchgirl could only stay here so
long, then she had to go back for some R & R. Her presence at the Bluebell Campground wasn’t much
different from her presence that day in the supermarket, only this manifestation was much more
powerful. And why? Because the man was assisting her. Boosting her. If he were dead when the girl
returned—
Looking down at him, Rose called: “I’d leave while you still have the chance, Danny. Don’t make
me punish you.”
7
Silent Sarey was so focused on what was going on at Roof O’ the World—listening with every
admittedly limited IQ point of her mind as well as with her ears—that she did not at first realize she
was no longer alone in the shed. It was the smell that finally alerted her: something rotten. Not
garbage. She didn’t dare turn, because the door was open and the man out there might see her. She
stood still, the sickle in one hand.
Sarey heard Rose telling the man to leave while he still had the chance, and that was when the shed
door began swinging shut again, all on its own.
“Don’t make me punish you!” Rose called. That was her cue to burst out and put the sickle in the
troublesome, meddling little girl’s neck, but since the girl was gone, the man would have to do. But
before she could move, a cold hand slid over the wrist holding the sickle. Slid over it and clamped
tight.
She turned—no reason not to now, with the door closed—and what she saw by the dim light
filtering through the cracks in the old boards caused a scream to come bolting out of her usually silent
throat. At some point while she had been concentrating, a corpse had joined her in the toolshed. His
smiling, predatory face was the damp whitish-green of a spoiled avocado. His eyes seemed almost to
dangle from their sockets. His suit was splotched with ancient mold . . . but the multicolored confetti
sprinkled on his shoulders was fresh.
“Great party, isn’t it?” he said, and as he grinned, his lips split open.
She screamed again and drove the sickle into his left temple. The curved blade went deep and hung
there, but there was no blood.
“Give us a kiss, dear,” Horace Derwent said. From between his lips came the wiggling white
remnant of a tongue. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been with a woman.”
As his tattered lips, shining with decay, settled on Sarey’s, his hands closed around her throat.
8
Rose saw the shed door swing closed, heard the scream, and understood that she was now truly alone.
Soon, probably in seconds, the girl would be back and it would be two against one. She couldn’t allow
that.
She looked down at the man and summoned all of her steam-amplified force.
(choke yourself do it NOW)
His hands rose toward his throat, but too slowly. He was fighting her, and with a degree of success
that was infuriating. She would have expected a battle from the bitchgirl, but that rube down there
was an adult. She should have been able to brush aside any steam remaining to him like mist.