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Father Toly to his patient: "I have antibiotic powder, capsules of various penicillin derivatives, but no effective painkiller I wish I did But this world is about suffering, isn’t it? This vale of tears You’ll be all right You’ll be just fine I proh me"

Whether the rector of St Bernadette’s was a saint or villain, one of the few rational people left in Moonlight Bay or way insane, I couldn’t judge I didn’t have enough facts, didn’t understand the context of his actions

I was certain of only one thing: Even if Father To, his head nevertheless contained enough loose wiring toa baptis," the priest told his patient, "because for three years after seht I heard the patient: aof pigeons blended with the ht," Father Tom continued "But you really must stay here a few days so I can ad of the wound Do you understand me?" With a note of frustration and despair: "Do you understand ht and peer around the wall of boxes, the Other replied to the priest The Other: That was how I thought of the fugitive when I heard it speaking froe, because this was a voice that I was not able to i either that of a child or aBook of Creation

I froze My finger tightened on the trigger

Certainly it sounded partly like a young child, a little girl, and partly like a s, in fact, as though a highly creative Hollywood sound technician had been playing with a library of huh an audio console until he’d created the ultimate voice for an extraterrestrial

Theabout the Other’s speech was not the tonal range of it, not the pattern of inflections, and not even the earnestness and the emotion that clearly shaped it Instead, whatI was not listening lish, of course, not a word of it; and although I’ue, either, for it was not coe It was, however, a fluent series of exotic sounds crudely coe, with a sent rhythms

The Other seemed pathetically desperate to communicate As I listened, I was surprised to find , loneliness, and anguish in its voice These were not qualities that I iined They were as real as the boards beneath ainstof my heart

When the Other and the priest both fell silent, I wasn’t able to look around the corner I suspected that whatever the priest’s visitor ht look like, it would not pass for a real inal troop that had been tor Bobby and that Orson and I had encountered on the southern horn of the bay If it resereater and surely more numerous than the baleful dark-yellow color of the other ht see,whatsoever to do with the possible hideousness of this laboratory-born Other My chest was so tight with emotion that I couldn’t draw deep breaths, and my throat was so thick that I could s only with effort What I feared wasto be norh success to be happy with ile I had heard a terrible longing in this creature’s voice, and I felt that it was akin to the sharp longing around which I had ages ago fornation; I was afraid that if I met the Other’s eyes, some resonance between us would shatter that pearl and leave

This is also why I cannot, dare not, will not express rief when life wounds me or takes from me someone I love Grief too easily leads to despair In the fertile ground of despair, self-pity can sprout and thrive I can’t begin to indulge in self-pity, because by enu a hole so deep that I’ll never again be able to crawl out of it I’ve got to be so of a cold bastard to survive, live with a chinkless shell aroundfor the dead I’, to eive ht be abused But on the day that my father dies, I must make jokes about death, about cre, because I can’t risk--won’t risk--descending frorief to despair to self-pity and, finally, to the pit of inescapable rage and loneliness and self-hatred that is freakdom I can’t love the dead too much No matter how desperately I want to reo--and quickly I have to push the in their deathbeds Likewise, I have toand too hard about what it really means to have murdered a in to wonder if I am, in fact, the freak that those nasty little shitheads of htcrawler, Vampire Boy, Creepy Chris I must not care too much about the dead, either those whom I loved or those who alone I e Like all of us in this stores on the world, only ses for the better, I hope, in the lives of those I love, which means that to live I must care not about what I am but about what I can become, not about the past but about the future, not even so ht circle of friends who provide the only light in which I a the corner and facing the Other, in whose eyes Ithe Glock as if it were a talish it were a crucifix hich I could ward off all that ht destroy ht, turnedthe south side of the attic ider than the one along the east flank, perhaps eight feet across; and on the plywood floor, tucked in against the eaves, was a narrow ht caed into a GFI receptacle that was mounted on an eave brace Beside the mattress were a thermos, a plate of sliced fruit and buttered bread, a pail of water, bottles of es, a folded towel, and a dauest seemed to have vanished as if they had whispered an incantation

Although i in the Other’s voice, I could not have been standing at the end of the box row for more than a minute, probably half a minute, after the creature had fallen silent Yet neither Father Toeway ahead

Silence ruled I heard not a single footfall Not any creak or pop or tick of wood that soundednoises

I actually looked up into the rafters toward the center of the space, overco pair had learned a trick froossaht black balls in the shadows overhead

As long as I stayed close to the wall of boxes on ht side, I had sufficient headroo from the eaves to my left, the sharply pitched rafters cleared ht inches Nevertheless, I moved defensively in a ht, and the brass cone focused the light away from me, so I moved to the mattress for a closer look at the items arrayed beside it With the toe of one shoe, I disturbed the tangled blankets; although I’m not sure what I expected to find under the

I wasn’t concerned that Father To, I didn’t think he was finished with his work up here in the attic Besides, my criminally experienced mutt would have the street savvy to duck for cover and lie low until escape was more feasible

Suddenly, however, I realized that if the priest went below, he ht fold away the ladder and close the trapdoor I could force it open and release the ladder fro almost as much racket as Satan and his conspirators had e to the next entrance to thethe priest and the Other on the route theyh-quality plyboard had few voids, and it was screwed rather than nailed to the floor joists, so I was virtually silent even in my haste

When I turned the corner at the end of the row of boxes, plump Father To only a o He was dressed neither for Mass nor bed, but earing a gray sweat suit and a sheen of sweat, as if he’d been fending off gluttonous urges by working out to an exercise video

"You!" he said bitterly when he recognized h I were not merely Christopher Snow but were the devil Baal and had stepped out of a conjurer’s chalk pentagra a lavatory pass