brief was the right word. It was all too brief. And then I think I dozed.
The next thing I remember for sure was Leigh shaking me fully awake and whispering my name over and over in my ear.
'Huh? What?' I was spaced out and my leg was full of a glassy pain, simply waiting to explode. There was an ache in my temples, and my eyes felt too big for their sockets. I blinked around at Leigh like a large stupid owl.
'It's dark,' she said. 'I thought I heard something.'
I blinked again and saw that she looked drawn and frightened. Then I glanced toward the door and saw that it was standing wide open.
'How the hell did that - '
'Me,' she said. 'I opened it.'
'Cripes!' I said, straightening up -a little and wincing at the pain in my leg. 'That wasn't too smart, Leigh. If she had come - '
'She didn't,' Leigh said. 'It started to get dark, that's all,' and to snow harder. So I got out and opened the door and then I came back here. I kept thinking you'd wake up in a minute . . . you were mumbling . . . and I kept thinking, "I'll wait until it's really dark, I'll just wait until it's really dark," and then I saw I was fooling myself, because it's been dark for almost half an hour now and I was only thinking I could still see some light. Because I wanted to see it, I guess. And . . . just now . . . I thought I heard something.'
Her lips began to tremble and she pressed them tightly together.
I looked at my watch and saw that it was quarter of six. If everything had gone right, my parents and sister would be together with Michael and Leigh's folks now. I looked through Petunia's windscreen at the square of snow-shot darkness where the garage entrance was. I could hear the wind shrieking. A thin creeper of snow had already blown in onto the cement.
'You just heard the wind, I said uneasily. 'It's walking and talking out there.'
'Maybe. But - '
I nodded reluctantly. I didn't want her to leave the safety of Petunia's high cab, but if she didn't go now, maybe she never would. I wouldn't let her, and she would let me not let her. And then, when and if Christine came, all she would have to do would be to reverse back out of Darnell's.
And wait for a more opportune time.
'Okay,' I said. 'But remember . . . stand back in that little niche to the right of the door. If she comes, she may just stand outside for a while.' Scenting the air like an animal, I thought. 'Don't get scared, don't move. Don't let her freak you into giving yourself away. Just be cool and wait until she comes in. Then push that button and get the hell out. Do you understand?'
'Yes,' she whispered. 'Dennis, will this work?'
'It should, if she comes at all.'
'I won't see you until it's over.'
'I guess that's so.'
She leaned over, placed her left hand tightly on the side of my neck, and kissed my mouth. 'Be careful, Dennis,' she said, 'But kill it. It's realty not a she at all - just an it. Kill it.'
'I will,' I said.
She looked in my eyes and nodded. "Do it for Arnie 'she said. 'Set him free.'
I hugged her hard and she hugged me back. Then she slid across the seat. She hit her little handbag with her knee and it fell to the floor of the cab. She paused, bead cocked, a startled, thoughtful look in her eyes. Then she smiled, bent over, picked it up, and began to rummage quickly through it.
'Dennis,' she said, 'do you remember the Morte d'arthur?'
'A little.' One of the classes Leigh and Arnie and I had all shared before my football injury was Fudgy Bowen's Classics of English Literature, and one of the first things we had been faced with in there was Malory's Morte d'arthur. Why Leigh asked me this now was a mystery to me.
She had found what she wanted. It was a filmy pink scarf, nylon, the sort of thing a girl wears over her head on a day when a misty sort of rain is falling. She tied it around the left forearm of my parka.
'What the hell?' I asked, smiling a little.
'Be my knight,' she said, and smiled back - but her eyes were serious. 'Be my knight,