Page 27 (2/2)

"Knohat this is, Tyler?" Burny asks

"Taser," Ty says "Isn’t it?"

Burny grins, revealing the stu boy, I’ll be bound It’s a Taser, yes But a special type ¡ª it’ll drop a cow at thirty yards Understand? You try to run, boy, I’ll bring you down like a ton of bricks Come out here"

Ty steps out of the cell He has no idea where this horrible old man means to take hi free of the cell The futon was the worst He knows, somehow, that he hasn’t been the only kid to cry hi, lumpy head, nor the tenth

Nor, probably, the fiftieth

"Turn to your left"

Ty does Now the old rip the right cheek of his bottom It’s not the first time the old ain of the witch in "Hansel and Gretel," asking the lost children to stick their are), but this time his touch is different Weaker

Die soon, Ty thinks, and the thought ¡ª its cold collectedness ¡ª is very, very Judy Die soon, old man, so I don’t have to

"This one is mine," the old er quite sure of himself "I’ll bake half, fry the rest With bacon"

"I don’t think you’ll be able to eat much," Ty says, surprised at the calmness of his own voice "Looks like so ¡ª "

There is a crackling, acco sensation in his left shoulder Ty screaainst the wall across the corridor fro not to cry, trying to hold on to just a little of his beautiful dreae Rathbun and the other KDCU Brewer Bash winners He knows he actually did forget to enter this year, but in dreas don’t matter That’s what’s so beautiful about them

Oh, but it hurts so bad And despite all his efforts ¡ª all the Judy Marshall in hiin to flow

"You want another un?" the old asps He sounds both sick and hysterical, and even a kid Ty’s age knows that’s a dangerous coood luck?"

"No," Ty gasps "Don’t zap ain, please don’t"

"Then start walkin’! And no oddamn remarks!"

Ty starts to walk So So caw of a crow ¡ª probably the same one that tricked him, and how he’d like to have Ebbie’s 22 and blow its evil shiny black feathers off The outside world seee Rathbun told his you heard in drea before she started to go all wonky in the head, too

They come to a stairway that seems to circle down forever Up from the depths comes a smell of sulfur and a roast of heat Faintly he can hear what ht be screams and moans The clank ofsounds that uy won’t zap hiht fall down this long circular staircase Might hit the place on his head the old guy already clipped with the rock, or break his neck, or tuuy wants him alive, at least for now Ty doesn’t knohy, but he knows this intuition is true

"Where are we going, ht, out-of-breath voice "And if you think I don’t dare zap you while we’re on the stairs, "

Tyler Marshall starts down the stairs, descending past vast galleries and balconies, around and down, around and down Soe Sometimes it smells of burned candles Sometimes of wet rot He counts a hundred and fifty steps, then stops counting His thighs are burning Behind hi and holding the ancient banister

Fall, old man, Ty chants inside his head Fall and die, fall and die

But at last they are at the botto Above the There are plants oozing out of broken pots, sending greedy feelers across a floor of broken orange bricks Ahead of them, two doors ¡ª French doors, Ty thinks they are called ¡ª stand open Beyond the patio surrounded by ancient trees So, ropy vines ¡ªhe’s sure of: they are no longer in Wisconsin

Standing on the patio is an object he knows very well So froain at the sight of it, which is aln place

"Stop, monkey-boy" The old man sounds out of breath "Turn around"

When Tyler does, he’s pleased to see that the blotch on the old ers of blood now stretch all the way to his shoulders, and the waistband of his baggy old blue jeans has gone athe Taser is rock-steady

God damn you, Tyler thinks God da on a little table He si his breath Then he ru in there utters a faint s out a soft brown cap It’s the kind guys like Sean Connery sometimes wear in the movies The old rab ers, expecting the texture of suede, are surprised by soin his hand, like a mild version of the Taser’s jolt He looks at the old ly "Do I have to?"

Burny raises the Taser and bares his teeth in a silent grin

Reluctantly, Ty puts the cap on

This ti fills his head For apasses, leaving hi at his temples

"Special boys need special toys," Burny says, and it comes out sbecial boyz, sbecial toyz As always, Mr Munshun’s ridiculous accent has rubbed off a little, thickening that touch of South Chicago Henry detected on the 911 tape "Noe can go out"

Because with the cap on, I’m safe, Ty thinks, but the idea breaks up and drifts away almost as soon as it comes He tries to think of his middle name and realizes he can’t He tries to think of the bad crow’s naet that, either ¡ª was it so The cap ishim up, he realizes, and that’s what it’s supposed to do

Now they pass through the open doors and onto the patio The air is redolent with the smell of the trees and bushes that surround the back side of Black House, a sray sky seeh to touch Ty can s bitter and electric and juicy The sound of nized sitting on the broken bricks is an E-Z-Go golf cart The Tiger Woods model

"My dad sells these," Ty says "At Goltz’s, where he works"

"Where do you think it came from, asswipe? Get in Behind the wheel"

Ty looks at him, amazed His blue eyes, perhaps thanks to the effects of the cap, have grown bloodshot and rather confused "I’h to drive"

"Oh, you’ll be fine A baby could drive this baby Behind the wheel"

Ty does as he is told In truth, he has driven one of these in the lot at Goltz’s, with his father sitting watchfully beside hi hi his perforated midsection The Taser is in the other hand, however, and the steel tip renition Ty turns it There’s a click fro CHARGE glows bright green Now all he has to do is push the accelerator pedal And steer, of course

"Good so far," the old ht hand off his er Ty sees a path of discolored gravel ¡ª once, before the trees and underbrush encroached, it was probably a driveway ¡ª leading away froo slow Speed and I’ll zap you Try to crash us and I’ll break your wrist for you Then you can drive one-handed"

Ty pushes down on the accelerator The golf cart jerks forward The old ly

"It would be easier if I could take off the cap," Ty says "Please, I’m pretty sure that if you’d just let me ¡ª "

"No! Cap stays! Drive!"

Ty pushes down gently on the accelerator The E-Z-Go rolls across the patio, its brand-new rubber tires crunching on broken shards of brick There’s a bu up the driveway Heavy fronds ¡ª they feel daes The golf cart swerves Burny jabs the Taser at the boy, snarling

"Next tioes writhing across the overgrown gravel up ahead, and Ty utters a little screah his clenched teeth He doesn’t like snakes, didn’t even want to touch the harht to school, and this thing is the size of a python, with ruby eyes and fangs that prop its mouth open in a perpetual snarl

"Go! Drive!" The Taser, waving in his face The cap, buzzing faintly in his ears Behind his ears

The drive curves to the left Some sort of tree burdened hat look like tentacles leans over them The tips of the tentacles tickle across Ty’s shoulders and the goose-prickled, hair-on-end nape of his neck

Ourr boyy

He hears this in his head in spite of the cap It’s faint, it’s distant, but it’s there

Ourrrrr boyyyyyyesssssourrrrs

Burny is grinning "Hear ’em, don’tcha? They like you So do I We’re all friends here, don’t you see?" The grin becoain "Goddaasps

Then, suddenly, the trees are gone The golf cart rolls out onto a sullen, cru plain The bushes dwindle and Ty sees that farther along they give way entirely to a cruray sky A few birds of enory, sluone froht before Ty can see exactly what it isnot that he wanted to The thud and pound ofthe earth The cruears; the squall of cogs Tyler can feel the golf cart’s steering wheel thru in his hands Ahead of the the far side of it is a wall of round white stones

"That thing you hear, that’s the Cri’s power plant," Burny says He speaks with pride, but there isCombination A million children have died on its belts, and a zillion more to coht have a future after all First, though, I’ll have my piece of you Yes indeed"

His blood-streaked hand reaches out and caresses the top of Ty’s buttock

"A good agent’s entitled to ten percent Even an old buzzard likeTy has been on the verge of screa at Miller Park with good old George Rathbun If I’d really entered the Brewer Bash, he thinks, none of this would have happened

But he thinks that s are meant to be, that’s all Meant

He just hopes that what this horrible old creature wants is not one of the back "Three miles Give or take" And, as Tylerfroround aren’t mist at all They’re ribbons of s his er Road Get off it and there are things out there that’d pull you to pieces just to hear you screaht be just a leedle change of plan" His pain-wracked face takes on a sulky cast Ty thinks it makes hiuts I don’t trust hi: "Carl Bierstone don’t trust Mr Munshun! Not noHe concentrates on keeping the golf cart in the er Road He risks one look back, but the house, in its epheone, blocked from view by the first of the eroded hills

"He’ll have what’s his, but I’ll have what’s , Burny brandishes the Taser "Do you hear me, you asswipe monkey?"

"Yeah," Ty says "Yeah, sure" Why don’t you die? God, if You’re there, why don’t You just reach down and put Your finger on his rotten heart and stop it froain, his voice is sly "You looked at the wall on t’other side, but I don’t think you looked close enough Better take another gander"

Tyler looks past the slumped old man For a mo white stones stretching endlessly away along the far side of Conger Road aren’t stones at all They’re skulls

What is this place? Oh God, hoants his ain, his brain nu beneath the cap that looks like cloth but isn’t, Ty pilots the golf cart deeper and deeper into the furnace-lands Into Sheol

Rescue ¡ª help of any kind ¡ª has never seemed so far away