what happened. The kid's lying. It's written all over his face, and all of a sudden I'm very fucking glad he can't read my thoughts.
'I think Miss Anderson would rather have you stay here and keep on with the work,' Bobby Tremain said evenly.
'You think?'
'That is, we all think.' The kid looked momentarily more disconcerted than ever -wary, a bit rocky on his feet. Didn't expect Bobbi's pet drunk to have any teeth or claws left, I guess. That kicked off another, much queerer thought, and he looked at the kid more closely in the light which was now fading into orange and ashy pink. Football-hero shoulders, a handsome, cleft-chinned face that might have been drawn by Alex Gordon or Berni Wrightson, deep chest, narrow waist. Bobby Tremain, All-American. No wonder the Colson girl was nuts over him. But that sunken, infirm-looking mouth went oddly with the rest, Gardener thought. They were the ones who kept losing teeth, not Gardener.
Okay - what's he here for?
To guard me. To make sure I stay put. No matter what.
'Well, all right,' he said to Tremain in a softer, more conciliatory voice. 'If that's what you all think.'
Tremain relaxed a little. 'It really is.'
'Well, let's go in and put on the coffee. I could use some. My head aches. And we'll have to get going early in the morning . . .'He stopped and looked at Tremain. 'You are going to help out, aren't you? That's part of it, isn't it?'
'Uh ... yessir.'
Gardener nodded. He looked at the shed for a moment, and in the fading light he could see brilliant green tattooed in the small spaces between the boards. For a moment his dream shimmered almost within his grasp - deadly shoemakers hammering away at unknown devices in that green glare. He had never seen the glow as bright as this before, and he noticed that when Tremain glanced in that direction, his eyes skittered away uneasily.
The lyric of an old song floated, not quite randomly, into Gardener's mind and then out again:
Don't know what they're doing, but they laugh a lot behind the green door ... green door, what's that secret you're keepin'?
And there was a sound. Faint ... rhythmic ... not at all identifiable ... but somehow unpleasant.
The two of them had faltered. Now Gardener moved on toward the house. Tremain followed him gratefully.
'Good,' Gardener said, as if the conversation had never lagged. 'I can use some help. Bobbi figured we'd get down to some sort of hatchway in about two weeks ... that we'd be able to get inside.'
'Yes, I know,' Tremain said without hesitation.
'But that was with two of us working.'
'Oh, there'll always be someone else with you,' Tremain said, and smiled openly. A chill rippled up Gardener's back.
'Oh?'
'Yes! You bet!'
'Until Bobbi comes back.'
'Until then,' Tremain agreed.
Except he doesn't think Bobbi's going to be back. Ever.
'Come on,' he said. 'Coffee. Then maybe some chow.'
'Sounds good to me.'
They went inside, leaving the shed to churn and mutter to itself in the growing dark. As the sun disappeared, the stitching of green at the cracks grew brighter and brighter and brighter. A cricket hopped into the luminous pencil-mark one of these cracks printed onto the ground and fell dead.
BOOK II. TALES OF HAVEN Chapter 10. A Book of Days – The Town, Concluded
1
Thursday, July 28th:
Butch Dugan woke up in his own bed in Derry at exactly 3:05 A.M. He pushed back the covers and swung his feet out onto the floor. His eyes were wide and dazed, his face puffy with sleep. The clothes he had worn on his trip to Haven with the old man the day before were on the chair by his small desk. There was a pen in the breast pocket of the shirt. He wanted that pen. This seemed to be the only thought his mind would clearly admit.
He got up, went to the chair, took the pen, tossed the shirt on the floor, sat down, and then just sat for several moments, looking out into the darkness, waiting for the next thought.
Butch had gone into Anderson's shed, but very little of him had come out. He seemed shrunken, lessened. He had no clear memories of anything. He could not have told a questioner his own middle name, and he did not at all remember being driven to the Haven-Troy town line in the Cherokee Hillman had rented, or sliding behind the wheel after Adley McKeen got out and walked back to Kyle Archinbourg's Cadillac. He