Black House

"I wondered if you were really a doctor," Jack says.

"Completed my residency in surgery at U.I., walked away from the whole deal right there." Doc smiles at him. "Hanging around with these guys, getting into beer brewing, sounded like more fun than spending all day cutting people up."

"Mouse," Beezer says.

"Yeah. I was just getting to the curve in the little road, and it was like Kiz was standing right in front of me, it was so vivid. Her eyes closed, and her head hanging like a leaf about to fall. Oh man, I said to myself, this is not what I want to see at this particular moment. I could feel it all over again — the way I felt when Kiz hit the road. Sick dread. That’s the word for it, sick dread.

"And we come around the curve, and I hear this dog growling somewhere off in the woods. Not just growling, growling. Like twenty big dogs are out there, and they’re all mad as hell. My head starts feeling like it wants to explode. And I look up ahead of me to see if a pack of wolves or something is running toward us, and it takes me a while to realize that the weird shadowy stuff I see up ahead is a house. A black house.

"Little Nancy is hitting me on the back and rapping my head, screaming at me to stop. Believe me, I can get with the program, because the last thing I want to do is get any closer to that place. I stop the bike, and Little Nancy jumps off and pukes on the side of the road. She holds her head and she pukes some more. I’m feeling like my legs turned to rubber, like something heavy is pressing on my chest. That thing, whatever it is, is still going nuts in the woods, and it’s getting closer. I take another look up at the end of the road, and that ugly damn house is stretching back into the woods, like it’s crawling into them, only it’s standing still. It gets bigger the more you look at it! Then I see the sparkly lights floating around it, and they look dangerous — Stay away, they’re telling me, get out of here, Mouse. There’s another NO TRESPASSING sign leaning against the porch, and that sign, man . . . that sign kind of flashed, like it was saying THIS TIME I MEAN IT, BUDDY.

"My head is splitting in half, but I get Little Nancy on the bike, and she sags against me, like pure dead weight except she’s hanging on, and I kick the hog on and spin around and take off. When we get back to my place, she goes to bed and stays there for three days. To me, it seemed like I could hardly remember what happened. The whole thing went kind of dark. In my mind. I hardly had time to think about it anyhow, because Little Nancy got sick and I had to take care of her whenever I wasn’t at work. Doc gave her some stuff to get her temperature down, and she got better, so we could drink beer and smoke shit and ride around, like before, but she was never really the same. End of August, she started getting bad again, and I had to put her in the hospital. Second week of September, hard as she was fighting, Little Nancy passed away."

"How big was Little Nancy?" Jack asks, picturing a woman roughly the size of Mouse.

"Little Nancy Hale was about the size and shape of Tansy Freneau," Mouse says, looking surprised by the question. "If she stood on my hand, I could lift her up with one arm."

"And you never talked about this with anyone," Jack says.

"How could I talk about it?" Mouse asks. "First, I was crazy with worry about Little Nancy, and then it went clean out of my head. Weird shit will do that to you, man. Instead of sticking in your head, it erases itself."

"I know exactly what you mean," Jack says.

"I guess I do, too," says Beezer, "but I’d say that the Ultimate kicked the shit out of your reality there for a while. You did see the place, though — Black House."

"Damn straight," says Mouse.

Beezer focuses on Jack. "And you say the Fisherman, this creep Burnside, built it."

Jack nods.

"So maybe he’s living there, and he rigged up a bunch of gadgets to scare people away."

"Could be."

"Then I think we’re gonna let Mouse take us over on Highway 35 and see if he can find that little road he was talking about. Are you coming with us?"

"I can’t," Jack says. "I have to see someone in Arden first, someone who I think can also help us. She has another piece of the puzzle, but I can’t explain it to you until I see her."

"This woman knows something?"

"Oh, yes," Jack says. "She knows something."

"All right," Beezer says, and stands up from his stool. "Your choice. We’ll have to talk to you afterward."

"Beezer, I want to be with you when you go inside Black House. Whatever we have to do in there, whatever we see . . ." Jack pauses, trying to find the right words. Beezer is rocking on his heels, practically jumping out of his skin in his eagerness to hunt down the Fisherman’s lair. "You’re going to want me there. There’s more to this business than you can imagine, Beezer. You’re going to know what I’m talking about in a little while, and you’ll be able to stand up to it — I think all of you will — but if I tried to describe it now, you wouldn’t believe me. When the time comes, you’ll need me to see you through, if we get through. You’ll be glad I was there. We’re at a dangerous point here, and none of us wants to mess it up."

"What makes you think I’ll mess it up?" Beezer asks, with deceptive mildness.

"Anyone would mess it up, if they didn’t have the last piece of the puzzle. Go out there. See if Mouse can find the house he saw two years ago. Check it out. Don’t go in — to do that, you need me. After you check it out, come back here, and I’ll see you as soon as I can. I should be back before two-thirty, three at the latest."