Black House

(D’YAMBA)

At once he hears a low buzzing. It swells to a drone. Beezer, Doc, and Dale look around. For a moment nothing happens, and then the sunshiny doorway darkens. It’s almost as if a very small rain cloud has floated into the Sand Bar —

Stinky Cheese lets out a strangled squawk and goes flailing backward. "Wasps!" he shouts. "Them are wasps! Get clear!"

But they are not wasps. Doc and Lester Moon might not recognize that, but both Beezer and Dale Gilbertson are country boys. They know bees when they see one. Jack, meanwhile, only looks at the swarm. Sweat has popped out on his forehead. He’s concentrating with all his might on what he wants the bees to do.

They cloud around the squeeze bottle of honey so thickly it almost disappears. Then their humming deepens, and the bottle begins to rise, wobbling from side to side like a tiny missile with a really shitty guidance system. Then, slowly, it wavers its way toward the Sawyer Gang. The squeeze bottle is riding a cushion of bees six inches above the bar.

Jack holds his hand out and open. The squeeze bottle glides into it. Jack closes his fingers. Docking complete.

For a moment the bees rise around his head, their drone competing with Lily, who is shouting: "Save the tall bastard for me! He’s the one who raped Stella!"

Then they stream out the door and are gone.

The Kingsland Ale clock stands at 11:57.

"Holy Mary, mothera God," Beezer whispers. His eyes are huge, almost popping out of their sockets.

"You’ve been hiding your light under a bushel, looks like to me," Dale says. His voice is unsteady.

From the end of the bar there comes a soft thud. Lester "Stinky Cheese" Moon has, for the first time in his life, fainted.

"We’re going to go now," Jack says. "Beez, you and Doc lead. We’ll be right behind you in Dale’s car. When you get to the lane and the NO TRESPASSING sign, don’t go in. Just park your scoots. We’ll go the rest of the way in the car, but first we’re going to put a little of this under our noses." Jack holds up the squeeze bottle. It’s a plastic version of Winnie-the-Pooh, grimy around the middle where Lester seizes it and squeezes it. "We might even dab some in our nostrils. A little sticky, but better than projectile vomiting."

Confirmation and approval are dawning in Dale’s eyes. "Like putting Vicks under your nose at a murder scene," he says.

It’s nothing like that at all, but Jack nods. Because this is about believing.

"Will it work?" Doc asks doubtfully.

"Yes," Jack replies. "You’ll still feel some discomfort, I don’t doubt that a bit, but it’ll be mild. Then we’re going to cross over to . . . well, to someplace else. After that, all bets are off."

"I thought the kid was in the house," Beez says.

"I think he’s probably been moved. And the house . . . it’s a kind of wormhole. It opens on another . . ." World is the first word to come into Jack’s mind, but somehow he doesn’t think it is a world, not in the Territories sense. "On another place."

On the TV, Lily has just taken the first of about six bullets. She dies in this one, and as a kid Jack always hated that, but at least she goes down shooting. She takes quite a few of the bastards with her, including the tall one who raped her friend, and that is good. Jack hopes he can do the same. More than anything, however, he hopes he can bring Tyler Marshall back to his mother and father.

Beside the television, the clock flicks from 11:59 to 12:00.

"Come on, boys," Jack Sawyer says. "Let’s saddle up and ride."

Beezer and Doc mount their iron horses. Jack and Dale stroll toward the chief of police’s car, then stop as a Ford Explorer bolts into the Sand Bar’s lot, skidding on the gravel and hurrying toward them, pulling a rooster tail of dust into the summer air.

"Oh Christ," Dale murmurs. Jack can tell from the too small baseball cap sitting ludicrously on the driver’s head that it’s Fred Marshall. But if Ty’s father thinks he’s going to join the rescue mission, he’d better think again.

"Thank God I caught you!" Fred shouts as he all but tumbles from his truck. "Thank God!"

"Who next?" Dale asks softly. "Wendell Green? Tom Cruise? George W. Bush, arm in arm with Miss Fucking Universe?"

Jack barely hears him. Fred is wrestling a long package from the bed of his truck, and all at once Jack is interested. The thing in that package could be a rifle, but somehow he doesn’t think that’s what it is. Jack suddenly feels like a squeeze bottle being levitated by bees, not so much acting as acted upon. He starts forward.

"Hey bro, let’s roll!" Beezer yells. Beneath him, his Harley explodes into life. "Let’s — "

Then Beezer cries out. So does Doc, who jerks so hard he almost dumps the bike idling between his thighs. Jack feels something like a bolt of lightning go through his head and he reels forward into Fred, who is also shouting incoherently. For a moment the two of them appear to be either dancing with the long wrapped object Fred has brought them or wrestling over it.

Only Dale Gilbertson — who hasn’t been to the Territories, hasn’t been close to Black House, and who is not Ty Marshall’s father — is unaffected. Yet even he feels something rise in his head, something like an interior shout. The world trembles. All at once there seems to be more color in it, more dimension.

"What was that?" he shouts. "Good or bad? Good or bad? What the hell is going on here?"

For a moment none of them answer. They are too dazed to answer.

While a swarm of bees is floating a squeeze bottle of honey along the top of a bar in another world, Burny is telling Ty Marshall to face the wall, goddamnit, just face the wall.