'Negative perspiration,' Arnie said. He finished his beer, and LeBay tossed it into the back seat. 'Another dead soldier.'
'Yeah,' I said. 'Happy New Year, Arnie.' I fumbled for the doorhandle and opened it. I wondered if I could get out, if my trembling arms would support the crutches.
LeBay was looking at me, grinning. 'Just stay on my side, Dennis,' he said. 'You know what happens to shitters who don't.'
'Yes,' I whispered. I knew, all right.
I got my crutches out and heaved myself up onto them, careless of any ice that might be underneath. They held me. And once out, the world underwent a swimming, twisting change. Lights came on - but of course, they had been there all along. My family had moved into Mapleway Estates in June of 1959, the year before I was born.
We still lived here, but the area had stopped being known as Mapleway Estates by 1963 or '64 at the latest.
Out of the car, I was looking at my own house on my own perfectly normal street - just another part of Libertyville, Pa. I looked back at Arnie, half-expecting to see LeBay again, taxi-driver from hell with his benighted cargo of the long-dead.
But it was only Arnie, wearing his high school jacket with his name sewn over the left breast, Arnie looking too pale and too alone, Arnie with a can of beer propped against his crotch.
'Good night, man.'
'Goodnight,' I said. 'Be careful going home. You don't want to get picked up.'
'I won't,' he said. 'You take care, Dennis.'
'I will.'
I shut the door. My horror had changed to a deep and terrible sorrow - it was as if he had been buried. Buried alive. I watched Christine pull away from the kerb and head off down the street. I watched until she turned the corner and disappeared from sight. Then I started up the walk to the house. The walk was clear. My dad had scattered most of a ten-pound bag of Halite over it with me in mind.
I was three-quarters of the way to the door when a greyness seemed to drift over me like smoke and I had to stop and put my head down and try to hold onto myself. I could faint out here, I thought dimly, and then freeze to death on my own front walk where once Arnie and I had played hopscotch and jacks and statue-tag.
At last, little by little, the greyness started to clear. I felt an arm around my waist. It was Dad in his bathrobe and slippers.
'Dennis, are you okay?'
Was I okay? I had been driven home by a corpse.
'Yeah,' I said. 'Got a little dizzy. Let's get in. You'll freeze your butt off.'
He walked up the steps with me, his arm still circling my waist. I was glad to have it.
'Is Mom still up?' I asked.
'No - she saw the New Year in, and then she and Ellie went to bed. Are you drunk, Dennis?'
'No.'
'You don't look good,' he said, slamming the door behind us.
I uttered a crazy little shriek of laughter, and things went grey again . . . but only briefly this time. When I came back, he was looking at me with tight concern.
'What happened over there?'
'Dad - '
'Dennis, you talk to me!'
'Dad, I can't.'
'What is it with him? What's wrong with him, Dennis?'
I only shook my head, and it wasn't just the craziness of it, or fear for myself. Now I was afraid for all of them - my dad, my mom, Elaine, Leigh's folks. Coldly and sanely afraid.
Just stay on my side, Dennis. You know what happens to shitters who don't.
Had I really heard that?
Or had it been in my mind only?
My father was still looking at me.
'I can't.'
'All right,' he said. 'For now. I guess. But I need to know one thing, Dennis, and I want you to tell me. Do you have any reason to believe that Arnie was involved some way with Darnell's death, and the deaths of those boys?'
I thought of LeBay's rotting, grinning face, the flat pants poked up by something that could only have been bones.
'No,' I said, and that was almost the truth. 'Not Arnie.'
'All right,' he said. 'You want a hand up the stairs?'
'I can make it okay. You go to bed yourself, Dad.'
'Yeah. I'm going to. Happy New Year, Dennis - and if you want to tell me, I'm still here.'