gave him the absolutelywillies, making his testicles draw up and the hair on the back of hisarms prickle.
"Set the chair down there," Alan said, pointing. He hoisted Davey up byhis dry, papery armpits and sat him in the seat. He took some duct tapeout of a utility drawer under the basement staircase and used it to gumDanny down in the chair.
"Davey," he said again. "I know you can hear me. Stop pretending."
"That's your brother?" Kurt said. "The one who --"
"That's him," Alan said. "I guess you believe me now, huh?"
Davey grinned suddenly, mirthless. "Still making friends and influencingpeople, brother?" he said. His voice was wet and hiccuping, like he wasdrowning in snot.
"We're not going to play any games here, Davey. You're going to tell mewhere Edward, Felix, and Griffin are, or I'm going to tear your fingersoff and smash them into powder. When I run out of fingers, I'll switchto teeth."
Kurt looked at him in alarm. He moaned. "Jesus, Adam --"
Adam whirled on him, something snapping inside. "Don't, Kurt, justdon't, okay? He tried to kill me tonight. He may already have killed mybrothers. This is life or death, and there's no room for sentiment orhumanity. Get a hammer out of the toolbox, on that shelf." Kurthesitated. "Do it!" Alan said, pointing at the toolbox.
Kurt shrank back, looking as though he'd been slapped. He moved as if ina dream, opening the toolbox and pawing through it until he came up witha scarred hammer, one claw snapped off.
Davey shook his head. "You don't scare me, Albert. Not for an instant. Ihave a large supply of fingers and teeth -- all I need. And you --you're like him. You're a sentimentalist. Scared of yourself. Scared ofme. Scared of everything. That's why you ran away. That's why you gotrid of me. Scared."
Alan dug in his pocket for the fingerbones and teeth he'd collected. Hefound the tip of a pinky with a curled-over nail as thick as an oyster'sshell, crusted with dirt and blood. "Give me the hammer, Kurt," he said.
Davey's eyes followed him as he set the fingertip down on the tiles andraised the hammer. He brought it down just to one side of the finger,hard enough to break the tile. Kurt jumped a little, and Alan held thehammer up again.
"Tell me or this time I won't miss," he said, looking Davey in the eye.
Davey shrugged in his bonds.
Alan swung the hammer again. It hit the fingertip with a jarring impactthat vibrated up his arm and resonated through his hurt shoulder. Heraised the hammer again. He'd expected the finger to crush into powder,but instead it fissured into three jagged pieces, like a piece of chertfracturing under a hammer-stone.
Davey's eyes were squeezed down to slits now. "You're the scaredone. You can't scare me," he said, his voice choked with phlegm.
Alan sat on the irregular tile and propped his chin in his palm. "Okay,Davey, you're right. I'm scared. You've kidnapped our brothers, maybeeven killed them. You're terrorizing me. I can't think, I can'tsleep. So tell me, Danny, why shouldn't I just kill you again, and getrid of all that fear?"
"I know where the brothers are," he said instantly. "I know where thereare more people like us. All the answers, Albert, every answer you'veever looked for. I've got them. And I won't tell you any of them. But solong as I'm walking around and talking, you think that I might."
#
Alan took Marci back to his bedroom, the winter bedroom that was no morethan a niche in the hot-spring cavern, a pile of rags and a sleeping bagfor a bed. It had always been enough for him, but now he was ashamed ofit. He took the flashlight from Marci and let it wind down, so that theywere sitting in darkness.
"Your parents --" she said, then broke off.
"It's complicated."
"Are they dead?"
He reached out in the dark and took her hand.
"I don't know how to explain it," he said. "I can lie, and you'llprobably think I'm telling the truth. Or I can tell the truth, andyou'll think that I'm lying."
She squeezed his hand. Despite the sweaty heat of the cave, her fingerswere cold as ice. He covered her hand with his free hand and rubbed ather cold fingers.
"Tell me the truth," she whispered. "I'll believe you."
So he did, in mutters and whispers. He didn't have the words to explainit all, didn't know exactly how to explain it, but he tried. How he knewhis father's moods. How he felt his mother's love.
After keeping this secret all his life, it felt incredible to be lettingit out. His heart thudded in his chest, and his shoulders feltprogressively lighter, until he thought he might rise up off his beddingand fly around the cave.
If it hadn't been dark, he wouldn't have been able to tell it. It wasthe dark, and the faint lunar glow of Marci's face that showed noexpression that let him open up and spill out all the secrets. Herfingers squeezed tighter and tighter, and now he felt like singing anddancing, because surely between the two of them, they could find a bookin the library or maybe an article in the microfilm cabinets that would*really* explain it to him.
He wound down. "No one else knows this," he said. "No one except you."He leaned in and planted a kiss on her cold lips. She sat rigid andunmoving as he kissed her.
"Marci?"
"Alan," she breathed. Her fingers went slack. She pulled her hand free.
Suddenly Alan was cold, too. The scant inches between them felt like anunbridgeable gap.
"You think I'm lying," he said, staring out into the cave.
"I don't know --"
"It's okay," he said. "I can help you get home now, all right?"
She folded her hands on her lap and nodded miserably.
On the way out of the cave, Eddie-Freddie-Georgie tottered over, stillholding his car. He held it out to her mutely. She knelt down solemnlyand took it from him, then patted him on the head. "Merry Christmas,kiddo," she said. He hugged her leg, and she laughed a little and bentto pick him up. She couldn't. He was too heavy. She let go of him andnervously pried his arms from around her thigh.
Alan took her down the path to the side road that led into town. Themoonlight shone on the white snow, making the world glow bluish. Theystood by the roadside for a long and awkward moment.
"Good night, Alan," she said, and turned and started trudging home.
#
There was no torture at school the next day. She ignored him through themorning, and he couldn't find her at recess, but at lunch she came andsat next to him. They ate in silence, but he was comforted by herpresence beside him, a warmth that he sensed more than felt.
She sat beside him in afternoon classes, too. Not a word passed betweenthem. For Alan, it felt like anything they could say to one anotherwould be less true than the silence, but that realization hurt. He'dnever been able to discuss his life and nature with anyone and it seemedas though he never would.
But the next morning, in the school yard, she snagged him as he walkedpast the climber made from a jumble of bolted-together logs and draggedhim into the middle. It smelled faintly of pee and was a rich source ofmysterious roaches and empty beer bottles on Monday mornings after theteenagers had come and gone.
She was crouched down on her haunches in the snow there, her steamingbreath coming in short huffs. She grabbed him by the back of his knittoque and pulled his face to hers, kissing him hard on the mouth,shocking the hell out of him by forcing her tongue past his lips.
They kissed until the bell rang, and as Alan made his way to class, hefelt like his face was glowing like a lightbulb. His homeroom teacherasked him if he was feeling well, and he stammered out some kind ofaffirmative while Marci, sitting in the next row, stifled a giggle.
They ate their lunches together again, and she filled the silence with arunning commentary of the deficiencies of the sandwich her father hadpacked her, the strange odors coming from the brown bag that Alan hadbrought, filled with winter mushrooms and some soggy bread and cheese,and the hairiness of the mole on the lunch lady's chin.
When they reached the schoolyard, she tried to drag him back to thelogs, but he resisted, taking her instead t
o the marsh where he'd firstspied her. The ground had frozen over and the rushes and reeds werestubble, poking out of the snow. He took her mittened hands in his andwaited for her to stop squirming.
Which she did, eventually. He'd rehearsed what he'd say to her allmorning: *Do you believe me? What am I? Am I like you? Do you still loveme? Are you still my friend? I don't understand it any better than youdo, but now, now there are two of us who know about it, and maybe we canmake sense of it together. God, it's such a relief to not be the onlyone anymore.*
But now, standing there with Marci, in the
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