Black House

"I think that’s a chance I’ll have to take," Jack says, frowning. "There’s a little boy somewhere — "

"Safe," Mouse whispers.

Jack raises his eyebrows, unsure if he’s heard Mouse right. And even if he has, can he trust what he’s heard? Mouse has some powerful, evil poison working in him. So far he’s been able to withstand it, to communicate in spite of it, but —

"Safe for a little while," Mouse says. "Not from everything . . . there’s things that might still get him, I suppose . . . but for the time being he’s safe from Mr. Munching. Is that his name? Munching?"

"Munshun, I think. How do you know it?"

Mouse favors Jack with a smile of surpassing eeriness. It is the smile of a dying sibyl. Once more he manages to touch his forehead, and Jack notes with horror that the man’s fingers are now melting into one another and turning black from the nails down. "Got it up here, man. Got it alll up here. Told you that. And listen: it’s better the kid should get eaten by some giant bug or rock crab over there . . . where he is . . . than that you should die trying to rescue him. If you do that, the abbalah will wind up with the kid for sure. That’s what your . . . your friend says."

"What friend?" Doc asks suspiciously.

"Never mind," Mouse says. "Hollywood knows. Don’tcha, Holly-wood?"

Jack nods reluctantly. It’s Speedy, of course. Or Parkus, if you prefer.

"Wait until tomorrow," Mouse says. "High noon, when the sun’s strongest in both worlds. Promise."

At first Jack can say nothing. He’s torn, in something close to agony.

"It’d be almost full dark before you could get back out Highway 35 anyway," Bear Girl says quietly.

"And there’s bad shit in those woods, all right," Doc says. "Makes the stuff in that Blair Witch Project look f**kin’ tame. I don’t think you want to try it in the dark. Not unless you got a death wish, that is."

"When you’re done . . ." Mouse whispers. "When you’re done . . . if any of you are left . . . burn the place to the ground. That hole. That tomb. Burn it to the ground, do you hear me? Close the door."

"Yeah," Beezer says. "Heard and understood, buddy."

"Last thing," Mouse says. He’s speaking directly to Jack now. "You may be able to find it . . . but I think I got something else you need. It’s a word. It’s powerful to you because of something you . . . you touched. Once a long time ago. I don’t understand that part, but . . ."

"It’s all right," Jack tells him. "I do. What’s the word, Mouse?"

For a moment he doesn’t think Mouse will, in the end, be able to tell him. Something is clearly struggling to keep him from saying the word, but in this struggle, Mouse comes out on top. It is, Jack thinks, very likely his life’s last W.

"D’yamba," Mouse says. "Now you, Hollywood. You say it."

"D’yamba," Jack says, and a row of weighty paperbacks slides from one of the makeshift shelves at the foot of the couch. They hang there in the dimming air . . . hang . . . hang . . . and then drop to the floor with a crash.

Bear Girl voices a little scream.

"Don’t forget it," Mouse says. "You’re gonna need it."

"How? How am I going to need it?"

Mouse shakes his head wearily. "Don’t . . . know."

Beezer reaches over Jack’s shoulder and takes the pitiful little scribble of map. "You’re going to meet us tomorrow morning at the Sand Bar," he tells Jack. "Get there by eleven-thirty, and we should be turning into that goddamned lane right around noon. In the meantime, maybe I’ll just hold on to this. A little insurance policy to make sure you do things Mouse’s way."

"Okay," Jack says. He doesn’t need the map to find Chummy Burn-side’s Black House, but Mouse is almost certainly right: it’s probably not the sort of place you want to tackle after dark. He hates to leave Ty Marshall in the furance-lands — it feels wrong in a way that’s almost sinful — but he has to remember that there’s more at stake here than one little boy lost.

"Beezer, are you sure you want to go back there?"

"Hell no, I don’t want to go back," Beezer says, almost indignantly. "But something killed my daughter — my daughter! — and it got here from there! You want to tell me you don’t know that’s true?"

Jack makes no reply. Of course it’s true. And of course he wants Doc and the Beez with him when he turns up the lane to Black House. If they can bear to come, that is.

D’yamba, he thinks. D’yamba. Don’t forget.

He turns back to the couch. "Mouse, do you — "

"No," Doc says. "Guess he won’t need the Cadillac dope, after all."

"Huh?" Jack peers at the big brewer-biker stupidly. He feels stupid.

Stupid and exhausted.

"Nothin’ tickin’ but his watch," Doc says, and then he begins to sing. After a moment Beezer joins in, then Bear Girl. Jack steps away from the couch with a thought queerly similar to Henry’s: How did it get late so early? Just how in hell did that happen?

"In heaven, there is no beer . . . that’s why we drink it here . . . and when . . . we’re gone . . . from here . . ."

Jack tiptoes across the room. On the far side, there’s a lighted Kingsland Premium Golden Pale Ale bar clock. Our old friend — who is finally looking every year of his age and not quite so lucky — peers at the time with disbelief, not accepting it until he has compared it to his own watch. Almost eight. He has been here for hours.

Almost dark, and the Fisherman still out there someplace. Not to mention his otherworldly playmates.

D’yamba, he thinks again as he opens the door. And, as he steps out onto the splintery porch and closes the door behind him, he speaks aloud with great sincerity into the darkening day: "Speedy, I’d like to wring your neck."