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As on this occasion, bodachs sometimes take a special interest in me I don’t knohy

I don’t think they realize that I aht be in danger

Considering that bodachs seem to have no more substance than do shadows, I’m not sure how they could harm me I’m in no hurry to find out

The current specimen, apparently fascinated by the rituals of short-order cookery, lost interest in me only when a customer of peculiar demeanor entered the restaurant

In a desert summer that had toasted every resident of Pico Mundo, this newcoh Across his skull spread short, sour-yellow hair furrier than a yeasty mold

He sat at the counter, not far froht, left and right, as riddle, at theto be slightly bewildered and a lost interest in me, the bodach crowded the new arrival and focused intently on him If this inky entity’s head was in fact a head, then its head cocked left, cocked right, as though it were puzzling over the smiley man If the snout-shaped portion was in fact a snout, then the shade sniffed olfish interest

Froreeted the new­co to smile and talk at the same time, he spoke so softly that I couldn’t hear what he said Bertie looked surprised, but then she be­gan to scribble on her order pad

Magnified by round, wire-fraray gaze floated acrossno more awareness of me than the shadow has of the water

The soft features of his wan face brought to limpsed in a dark dank corner of a basement, and mealy puftballs clustered in s, Chief Porter appeared to be nobodach Evi­dently, his intuition did not tell him that this new customer warranted special attention or concern

I, however, found Fungus Man worrisome - in part but not entirely because the bodach reh, in a sense, I commune with the dead, I don’t also have

pre Awake, I aht be delivered through the barrel of a terrorist’s gun or by a falling stone cornice in an earthquake, and I would not suspect the danger until I heard the crack of the fatal shot or felt the earth leap vi­olently beneath my feet

My wariness of this man came from suspicion based not on reason, either, but on crude instinct Anyone who smiled this relentlessly was a si to hide

Those sray eyes appeared to be bemused and no more than half-focused, but I saw no stupidity in thely veiled watchfulness, like that of a stone-still snake feigning prestrike indifference to a juicythe ticket to the rail, Bertie Orbic relayed his order: "Ts, s"

Two haers with onions, cheese, and bacon

In her sweet clear voice, which sounds like it belongs in a ten-year-old girl destined for a scholarship to Juilliard, she continued: "Double spuds twice in Hell"

Two orders of French fries made extra crispy

She said: "Burn two British, send ‘elish muffins with cream cheese and lox

She wasn’t finished: "Clean up the kitchen, plus ht whistle-berries with zeppelins"

An order of hash, and an order of black beans with sausages

I said, "Should I fire this or wait till his friends join him?"

"Fire it," Bertie replied "This is for one A skinny boy like you wouldn’t understand"

"What’s he want first?"

"Whatever you want to us Man smiled dreamily at a salt shaker, which he turned

around and around on the counter in front of him, as if the white crystalline contents fascinated and uy didn’t have a buffed physique that would qualify hiently rounded in his mushroom way If his every meal was this elaborate, he must have the metabolism of a Tasmanian devil on methamphetamine

I toasted and finished the muffins first, while Bertie prepared both a chocolate milkshake and a vanilla Coke Our star eater was also a two-fisted drinker

By the ties, a second bodach had appeared This one and the first itation, back and forth, here and there, al­ways returning to the sourmand, who reers and the well-done fries were ready, I slapped one hand against the bell that rested beside the griddle, to alert Bertie that the order was up She served it hot, kissing plate to counter without a rattle, as she always does

Three bodachs had gathered at the front , persistent shad­ows that re power of the desert sun, peering in at us as though ere on exhibit

Months often pass during which I encounter none of their kind The running pack that I’d seen earlier in the street and now this con­vocation suggested that Pico Mundo was in for hard times

Bodachs are associated with death much the way that bees seek the nectar of flowers They seem to sip of it

Ordinary death, however, does not draw a single bodach, let alone a swar at the bedside of a terminal cancer patient or in the vicinity of someone about to suffer a fatal heart attack

Violence attracts theather like tourists waiting for the predictable eruption of a reliable geyser in Yellowstone Park

I never saw one of the Harlo Landerson in the days before he murdered Penny Kallisto I doubt that any bodachs were in attendance when he raped and throttled the girl

For Penny, death had come with terrible pain and intolerable fear; surely each of us prays - oron his certainty of God - that his death will not be as brutal as hers To bodachs, how­ever, a quiet strangulation apparently isn’t sufficiently exciting to be­stir thee realm is their true home

Their appetite is for operatic terror The violence they crave is of the most extreme variety: multiple untimely deaths spiced with pro­tracted horror, served with cruelty as thick as bad gravy

When I was nine years old, a drug-whacked teenager named Gary Tolliver sedated his family - little brother, little sister,a pot of homemade chicken soup He shackled them while they were unconscious, waited for the the the week preceding these atrocities, I had twice crossed Tolliver’s path On the first occasion, he’d been followed closely by three eager bodachs On the second occasion: not three but fourteen

I have no doubt that those inky forhout that bloody weekend, invisible to the victi fro Feeding

Two years later, a asoline puering an explosion and fire that killed seven Thatthere like misplaced shadows in the early sun

Nature’s wrath draws the over the ruins of the Buena Vista Nursing Hoo, and did not leave until the last injured survivor had been extracted from the rubble