was standing in front of a fancy mansion where a party seemed to be going on. Preacherman was in a motorcade. Preacherman was at an outdoor barbecue and there was red, white, and blue bunting on the buildings behind him. People were eating corndogs and big slices of pizza. He was preaching about perverting the natural order of things which God had ordained, but then his voice cut out and was replaced by that of Dr. Hendricks.
“This is Paul Westin, kids. His home is in Deerfield, Indiana. Paul Westin. Deerfield, Indiana. Paul Westin, Deerfield, Indiana. Say it with me, boys and girls.”
Partly because they had no choice, partly because it would bring a merciful end to the colored dots and the rising and falling of the hum, mostly because now they were really into it, the ten children in the screening room began to chant. Kalisha joined in. She didn’t know about the others, but for her, this was the absolute worst part of movie nights. She hated that it felt good. She hated that feeling of levers just waiting to be yanked. Begging for it! She felt like a ventriloquist’s dummy on that fucking doctor’s knee.
“Paul Westin, Deerfield, Indiana! Paul Westin, Deerfield, Indiana! PAUL WESTIN, DEERFIELD, INDIANA!”
Then Dr. Hendricks came back on the screen, smiling and holding the unlit sparkler. “That’s right. Paul Westin, Deerfield, Indiana. Thank you, kids, and have a good night. See you tomorrow!”
The Stasi Lights came back one final time, blinking and swirling and spiraling. Kalisha gritted her teeth and waited for them to be gone, feeling like a tiny space capsule hurtling into a storm of giant asteroids. The hum was louder than ever, but when the dots disappeared the hum cut off instantly, as if a plug had been pulled on an amplifier.
They see it, Avery had said. Was that the missing piece? If so, who was they?
The screening room lights came up. The doors opened, Jake the Snake on one and Phil the Pill on the other. Most of the kids walked out, but Donna, Len, Hal, and Jimmy sat where they were. Might sit there lolling in the comfortable seats until the caretakers came to shoo them back to their rooms, and one or two or maybe even all four might be in Gorky Park after the show tomorrow. The big show. Where they did whatever was supposed to be done to the preacherman.
They were allowed another half hour in the lounge before being locked in their rooms for the night. Kalisha went there. George, Nicky, and Avery followed. After a few minutes, Helen shuffled in and sat on the floor with an unlit cigarette in her hand and her once bright hair hanging in her face. Iris and Katie came last.
“Headache’s better,” Katie announced.
Yes, Kalisha thought, the headaches get better after the movies . . . but only for a little while. A shorter little while each time.
“Another fun night at the movies,” George muttered.
“All right, children, what have we learned?” Nicky asked. “That somebody somewhere don’t much care for the Reverend Paul Westin, of Deerfield, Indiana.”
Kalisha zipped a thumb across her lips and looked at the ceiling. Bugs, she thought at Nicky. Be careful.
Nick put a finger-gun to his head and pretended to shoot himself. It made the others smile. It would be different tomorrow, Kalisha knew. No smiles then. After tomorrow’s show, Dr. Hendricks would appear with his sparkler lit, and the hum would rise to a white-noise roar. Levers would be pulled. There would be a period of unknown length, both sublime and horrible, when their headaches would be banished completely. Instead of a clear fifteen or twenty minutes afterward, there might be six or eight hours of blessed relief. And somewhere, Paul Westin of Deerfield, Indiana, would do something that would change his life or end it. For the kids in Back Half, life would go on . . . if you could call it living. The headaches would come back, and worse. Worse each time. Until instead of just feeling the hum, they would become part of it. Just another one of the—
The gorks!
That was Avery. No one else could project with such clean strength. It was as if he were living inside her head. That’s how it works, Sha! Because they—
“They see it,” Kalisha whispered, and there it was, bingo, the missing piece. She put the heels of her hands against her forehead, not because the headache was back, but because it was so