of the raincoat wasn’t a face at all. It was a skull. It was—
He jerked awake, his body bathed in sweat that was only in part due to the room’s explosive heat. He sat up, propped on his elbows, breathing in harsh gasps.
Snick.
The closet door was swinging open. And as it swung open he saw something inside, only for a second and then he was flying for the door which gave on the hall as fast as he could. He saw it only for a second, long enough to tell it wasn’t the man in the shiny black raincoat, Frank Dodd, the man who had killed the ladies. Not him. Something else. Something with red eyes like bloody sunsets.
But he could not speak of these things to his mother. So he concentrated on Debbie, the sitter, instead.
He didn’t want to be left with Debbie, Debbie was mean to him, she always played the record player loud, et cetera, et cetera. When none of this had much effect on his mother, Tad suggested ominously that Debbie might shoot him. When Donna made the mistake of giggling helplessly at the thought of fifteen-year-old myopic Debbie Gehringer shooting anyone, Tad burst into miserable tears and ran into the living room. He needed to tell her that Debbie Gehringer might not be strong enough to keep the monster in his closet—that if dark fell and his mother was not back, it might come out. It might be the man in the black raincoat, or it might be the beast.
Donna followed him, sorry for her laughter, wondering how she could have been so insensitive. The boy’s father was gone, and that was upsetting enough. He didn’t want to lose sight of his mother for even an hour. And—
And isn’t it possible he senses some of what’s gone on between Vic and me? Perhaps even heard . . . ?
No, she didn’t think that She couldn’t think that. It was just the upset of his routine.
The door to the living room was shut. She reached for the knob, hesitated, then knocked softly instead. There was no answer. She knocked again and when there was still no answer, she went in quietly. Tad was lying face down on the couch with one of the back cushions pulled firmly down over his head. It was behavior reserved only for major upsets.
“Tad?”
No answer.
“I’m sorry I laughed.”
His face looked out at her from beneath one edge of the puffy, dove-gray sofa cushion. There were fresh tears on his face. “Please can’t I come?” he asked. “Don’t make me stay here with Debbie, Mom.” Great histrionics, she thought. Great histrionics and blatant coercion. She recognized it (or felt she did) and at the same time found it impossible to be tough . . . partly because her own tears were threatening again. Lately it seemed that there was always a cloudburst just over the horizon.
“Honey, you know the way the Pinto was when we came back from town. It could break down in the middle of East Galoshes Corners and we’d have to walk to a house and use the telephone, maybe a long way—”
“So? I’m a good walker!”
“I know, but you might get scared.”
Thinking of the thing in the closet, Tad suddenly cried out with all his force, “I will not get scared!” His hand had gone automatically to the bulge in the hip pocket of his jeans, where the Monster Words were stowed away.
“Don’t raise your voice that way, please. It sounds ugly.”
He lowered his voice. “I won’t get scared. I just want to go with you.”
She looked at him helplessly, knowing that she really ought to call Debbie Gehringer, feeling that she was being shamelessly manipulated by her four-year-old son. And if she gave in it would be for all the wrong reasons. She thought helplessly, It’s like a chain reaction that doesn’t stop anyplace and it’s gumming up works I didn’t even know existed. O God I wish I was in Tahiti.
She opened her mouth to tell him, quite firmly and once and for all, that she was going to call Debbie and they could make popcorn together if he was good and that he would have to go to bed right after supper if he was bad and that was the end of it. Instead, what came out was, “All right, you can come. But our Pinto might not make it, and if it doesn’t well have to walk to a house and have the Town