Black House

Henry’s on a path in the woods — or maybe it’s a lane — and something is behind him. Each time he turns to see — in this dream he can see, but seeing is no blessing — there’s a little more of that something back there. It appears to be a man in evening dress, but the man is frightfully elongated, with spike teeth that jut over a smiling red lower lip. And he seems — is it possible? — to have only one eye.

The first time Henry looks back, the shape is only a milky blur amid the trees. The next time he can make out the uneasy dark swim of its coat and a floating red blotch that might be a tie or an ascot. Up ahead of him is this thing’s den, a stinking hole that only coincidentally looks like a house. Its presence buzzes in Henry’s head. Instead of pine, the woods pressing in on either side smell of heavy, cloying perfume: My Sin.

It’s driving me, he thinks with dismay. Whatever that thing back there is, it’s driving me like a steer toward the slaughterhouse.

He thinks of cutting off the lane to his left or right, of using the miracle of his new sight to escape through the woods. Only there are things there, too. Dark, floating shapes like sooty scarves. He can almost see the closest. It’s some sort of gigantic dog with a long tongue as red as the apparition’s tie and bulging eyes.

Can’t let it drive me to the house, he thinks. I have to get out of this before it can get me there . . . but how? How?

It comes to him with startling simplicity. All he has to do is wake up. Because this is a dream. This is just a —

"It’s a dream!" Henry cries out, and jerks forward. He’s not walking, he’s sitting, sitting in his very own easy chair, and pretty soon he’s going to have a very wet crotch because he fell asleep with a can of Kingsland Lager balanced there, and —

But there’s no spill, because there’s no can of beer. He feels cautiously to his right and yep, there it is, on the table with his book, a braille edition of Reflections in a Golden Eye. He must have put it there before first falling asleep and then falling into that horrible nightmare.

Except Henry’s pretty sure he didn’t do any such thing. He was holding the book and the beer was between his legs, freeing his hands to touch the little upraised dots that tell the story. Something very considerately took both the book and the can after he dropped off, and put them on the table. Something that smells of My Sin perfume.

The air reeks of it.

Henry takes a long, slow breath with his nostrils flared and mouth tightly sealed shut.

"No," he says, speaking very clearly. "I can smell flowers . . . and rug shampoo . . . and fried onions from last night. Very faint but still there. The nose knows."

All true enough. But the smell had been there. It’s gone now because she’s gone, but she will be back. And suddenly he wants her to come. If he’s frightened, surely it’s the unknown he’s frightened of, right? Only that and nothing more. He doesn’t want to be alone here, with nothing for company but the memory of that rancid dream.

And the tapes.

He has to listen to the tapes. He promised Jack.

Henry gets shakily to his feet and makes his way to the living-room control panel. This time he’s greeted by the voice of Henry Shake, a mellow fellow if ever there was one.

"Hey there, all you hoppin’ cats and boppin’ kitties, at the tone it’s seven-fourteen P.M., Bulova Watch Time. Outside the temp is a very cool seventy-five degrees, and here in the Make-Believe Ballroom it’s a very nifty seventy degrees. So why not get off your money, grab your honey, and make a little magic?"

Seven-fourteen! When was the last time he fell asleep for almost three hours in the daytime? For that matter, when was the last time he had a dream in which he could see? The answer to that second question, so far as he can remember, is never.

Where was that lane?

What was the thing behind him?

What was the place ahead of him, for that matter?

"Doesn’t matter," Henry tells the empty room — if it is empty. "It was a dream, that’s all. The tapes, on the other hand . . ."

He doesn’t want to listen to them, has never wanted to listen to anything any less in his life (with the possible exception of Chicago singing "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?"), but he has to. If it might save Ty Marshall’s life, or the life of even one other child, he must.

Slowly, dreading every step, Henry Leyden makes his blind way to his studio, where two cassettes wait for him on the soundboard.

"In heaven there is no beer," Mouse sings in a toneless, droning voice.

His cheeks are now covered with ugly red patches, and his nose seems to be sinking sideways into his face, like an atoll after an undersea earthquake.

"That’s why we drink it here. And when . . . we’re gone . . . from here . . . our friends will be drinking all the beer."

It’s been like this for hours now: philosophical nuggets, instructions for the beginning beer-making enthusiast, snatches of song. The light coming through the blankets over the windows has dimmed appreciably.

Mouse pauses, his eyes closed. Then he starts another ditty.

"Hundred bottles of beer on the wall, one hundred bottles of beer . . . if one of those bottles should happen to fall . . ."

"I have to go," Jack says. He’s hung in there as well as he can, convinced that Mouse is going to give him something, but he can wait no longer. Somewhere, Ty Marshall is waiting for him.

"Hold on," Doc says. He rummages in his bag and comes out with a hypodermic needle. He raises it in the dimness and taps the glass barrel with a fingernail.

"What’s that?"

Doc gives Jack and Beezer a brief, grim smile. "Speed," he says, and injects it into Mouse’s arm.

For a moment there’s nothing. Then, as Jack is opening his mouth again to tell them he has to go, Mouse’s eyes snap wide. They are now entirely red — a bright and bleeding red. Yet when they turn in his direction, Jack knows that Mouse is seeing him. Maybe really seeing him for the first time since he got here.