Page 16 (1/2)

Bobby said, "My kidneys will probably implode, my hair’ll fall out, my nose’ll drop off I’m doomed"

"You are if you don’t shut up"

"Even if I don’t die, ahine is going to want to date a bald, noseless guy with ihts, and the spotlighthostile was in the neighborhood The troop had hidden at the sound of the Jeep when Bobby had first driven into Wyvern, but perhaps they had done some reconnaissance since then; in which case they were aware that ere only two and that even with guns ere not necessarily a match for a horde of peevish primates Worse, maybe they realized that one of us was Christopher Snow, son of Wisteria Snoho perhaps was known to them as Wisteria von Frankenstein

Bobby zipped up and returned safely to the Jeep "That’s the first ti fire forbetter, bro?"

He kneell enough to understand that my apparent attack of hypochondria was actually unexpressed anxiety for Orson

I said, "Sorry for acting like a wanker"

Releasing the hand brake, shifting the Jeep into drive, he said, "To wank is huive is the essence of Bobbyness"

As we rolled slowly forward, I put down the shotgun and picked up the spotlight again "We’re not going to find them like this"

"Better idea?"

Before I could respond, so screamed The cry was eerie but not entirely alien; worse, it was a disturbing hybrid of the familiar and the unknown It seemed to be the wail of an animal, yet it had a too-hu

Bobby braked again "Where?"

I had already switched on the spotlight and aiht the screainated

The shadows of balusters and roof posts stretched to follow the bea the illusion of alow The shadows of bare tree limbs crawled up a clapboard wall

"Geek alert," Bobby said, and pointed

I swung the spotlight where he indicated, just in tirass and disappearing behind a long, four-foot-high boxwood hedge that separated the front lawns of four bungalows from the street

"What is it?" I asked

"Maybe--what I told you about"

"Big Head?"

"Big Head"

During long hotrains of the recent winter had not been able to revive it Although not a lick of green could be seen, a dense snarl of brittle branching reed here and there like bits of half-masticated meat

Bobby kept the Jeep in the middle of the street but drove slowly forward, parallel to the hedge

Even stripped of neth, the dead boxas so mature that its spiny skeleton effectively screened the creature crouched beyond it I didn’t think I was going to be able to pick out the beast at all, but then I spotted it because, although it was a shade of brown similar to the woody veil in front of it, the softer lines of its body contrasted with the jagged patterns of the bare hedge Through the interstices in the many layers of boxwood bones, I fixed the bealireen as that of certain cats

This thing was too big to be any cat other than a mountain lion

It was no ain and raced along the shielding deadith such speed that I couldn’t keep the light trained on it A break in the hedgerow allowed a ay to connect a bungaloith the street, but Big Head--or Big Foot, or the wolf, or whatever the hell this was--crossed the gap fast, an instant ahead of the light I didn’t get a look at anything but its shaggy ass, and not even a clear view of that, though a clear view of its ass

All I had were vague impressions The impression that it ran half erect like a monkey, shoulders sloped forward and head low, the knuckles of its hands aler than a rhesus That it uessed, and that if it rose to its full height, it would be able to peer at us over the top of the four-foot hedge and stick its tongue out at us

I swept the spotlight back and forth but couldn’t locate the critter along the next section of boxwood

"Running for it," Bobby said, braking to a full stop, rising half out of his seat, pointing

When I shiftedacross the yard, away froalow

Even when I held the spotlight high, I couldn’t get an angle on the fast- act was abetted by the intervening branches of a laurel and by tall grass

Bobby dropped back into his seat, swung toward the hedgerow, threw the Jeep into four-wheel drive, and tramped on the accelerator

"Geek chase," he said

Because Bobby lives for the moment and because he expects ulti more immediate than melanoma, he maintains the deepest tan this side of a skin-cancer ward By contrast, his teeth and his eyes glohite as the plutonium-soaked bones of Chernobyl wildlife, which usuallyand exotic and full of Gypsy spirit, but which noweek chase," he insisted, leaning into the steering wheel

The Jeep ju branches of two flanking laurels, and crashed through the boxwood hard enough to rattle the bottles of beer in the slush-filled cooler, spitting broken hedge branches behind it As we crossed the lawn, a raeet, green odor rose frorass under the tires, which was lush from the winter rains

The creature had disappeared around the side of the bungalow even as ere blasting through the hedge

Bobby went after it

"This has nothing to do with Orson or Jiine roar

"How do you know?"

He was right I didn’t know Maybe there was a connection Anye didn’t have any better leads to follow