The sputters turned into giant belly laughs.
“What the hell kind of language is that?” Whalen said between wipes at his eyes.
Will laughed some more. His stomach hurt. He had to piss from laughing.
But Kiff only repeated it. And again. And again. Until the laughter eventually faded.
The joke grew sour.
Kiff paused.
The waves smashed against the stone. Will felt a tiny salt spray touch the back of his neck, chilling him. This wasn’t fun anymore, he thought. I’m cold. And his stomach was starting to feel as if it were moving in time to the water.
Put a hold on a late breakfast later, he thought.
He imagined poached eggs sitting on toast, looking like rheumy, diseased eyes. And then he’d poke his fork right in the center and all this yellow goo .
.
.
Kiff started his chant again. Louder, his mouth spitting out the words.
Enough of this shit, Will thought. I’ve got to sit down. I’ve got to get out of here and —
Kiff spoke English.
The same rhythm, the same sound, but now in English.
“Come visibly and without delay,” he said. “In a human form, not terrifying .
.
.”
English
, thought Will.
But then —
It was back to the gibberish.
Will looked at everyone. They were standing still. Where had all the laughs gone? Will thought. We need some laughs. Why won’t Whalen say something funny and cutting? Why won’t Narrio fall down, so goofy and convulsed with how damn funny this all is?
He looked away.
And saw someone.
Further down, standing on the rocks, right near the water’s edge.
“Hey,” Will said. But then there were two people there. And — it was hard to see, there was no light. But —
Someone was watching them.
Will looked back to Kiff. “Hey, guys .
.
. we’re —”
“Come .
.
.” Kiff said.
Shit, Will thought: We’d better get out of here. Better …
He looked back at the people standing away from them, watching, what the hell .
.
.
They were gone.
Will looked at Whalen.
He seemed to rock on his feet, on the stone that was tilted forward, right toward the sea.
He watched Whalen rock back and forth.
Whalen’s going to fall, tumble forward, Will thought. Will went to take a step toward him, to catch him before his head smashed against the rock.
But first he looked back, out to the darkness again. There was nobody there. Probably just a shadow, thought Will. He looked down.
At the circle. At the rock.
At the point of his star. His feet were planted right on the tip.
Whalen rocked like a stalk of wheat being blown by a wind that couldn’t make up its mind.
Will raised his hand.
“
Meisto lamal .
.
.
” Kiff said.
But Will didn’t move.
And Whalen fell forward, his chin smashing against the stone with a crack that made Will wince. And Will saw blood gush out of the cut, more blood than Will had ever seen.
“Shit,” Tim said, kneeling down beside Whalen.
Kiff was still chanting.
“Cut that crap,” Will said.
Narrio still stood on his star point as if unaware that anything had happened.
Will crouched beside Whalen too. And with Tim’s help they tried to pull Whalen to his knees. They got him up into a doggie position. Whalen’s chin dripped blood, but Will saw that it wasn’t a bad cut, just a bloody one. A small flap of skin hung open, bit it didn’t look like anything that would need stitches.
Whalen looked up at them. “Guess I chugged a little bit too fast. I just — all of a sudden —”
And Whalen looked up, out to the sea, as if he had just seen the most incredible thing. He opened his mouth wide .
.
.
And proceeded to shoot a spray of vomit that must have reached the water’s edge.
Will — no steady sailor at this point himself — felt his own stomach go tight, ready to join the party.
But he took a breath of the suddenly full and too-sweet air, and he was able to steady himself.
I guess the fun part is over, he thought.
But, once again, he was wrong .
.
.
12
‘‘I’m okay. No problem, really.” Whalen looked up and around. He wiped at his chin, grinning, as if he had just been splashed with a messy wave that broke too high.
Mike Narrio laughed. Everything was so damn funny to Narrio again, even Whalen wiping puke from his chin.
Will shivered. The wind shifted a bit and he smelled his friend’s vomit, splattered across the rocks. Whalen held his tie against his chin. The flow of blood seemed to have been stemmed.
“Maybe we should bag it,” Will said. “It’s getting cold out here.”
Will saw Kiff standing there. Looking disappointed. The streetlight sputtered, flaring into increased brilliance. Will saw the dots of Jim Kiff’s freckles. Then the light shriveled to a paler glow.
Let’s get out of here, Will thought.
“Hey, no,” Whalen said, forcing a hearty laugh. “I’m fine. No problem.” He reached out and took the bourbon bottle from Tim’s hand. He held it up to the milky light. “There’s still a few more drinks here. And we can always hit that friendly liquor store again.” He turned to Kiff. “Right, Kiff? Right?”
But Kiff was staring at the circle, at the trail of upchuck, at the sea.
“He’s disappointed that nothing happened,” Tim said. “No demons .
.
.”
“Hey,” Whalen said, standing up, “you call what happened to me nothing? I’d say I did a pretty good impression of a volcano.”
Will smiled. Whalen was trying to bring himself back from
the land of the dead. And Will felt his own stomach start to settle. Then, incredibly, Whalen reached out —
Don’t do it, thought Will .
.
.
And grabbed the bottle again and took a slug of bourbon.
“Hair of the dog,” Whalen said.
Will groaned.
“Shit,” Kiff said to the stone.
And Will knew that Kiff, crazy Kiff, had thought that something might actually happen.
He’s somebody to stay away from, Will thought. No doubt about it. Jim Kiff is certifiable.
“Let’s go,” Will said. He took a step, climbing from one flat piece of broken stone to another.
But Tim waited.
Tim stood there, in his shadow, and said, “Wait.”
Narrio laughed. He was so drunk that everything was funny to him. Whalen gave Narrio the bottle and Narrio took a slug, nearly killing the bottle.
Oblivious to whatever taste might linger on the bottle.
“I’ve got an idea,” Tim said.
“Breakfast?” Will said.
Breakfast didn’t sound like such a great idea. But it would get them away from here, off the rocks, away from the sea, and —
“No.” Tim took a step up to the rock next to Will. And . Will felt the others watching Tim, the next scene to be played
out.
“What’s that?”
“Let’s go to Steeplechase,” Tim said.
“It’s closed,” Whalen said, laughing. Narrio howled.
Tim barely turned to them. Instead he kept focused on Will. “No. It’s going to be torn down. One of the great places in the world about to vanish.”
“Like Ebbets Field,” Whalen added.
“Yeah,” Tim said, “like fuckin’ Ebbets Field. And once it’s gone, you’ll never see it again.”
Will knew where this was leading. And he didn’t like the direction. He looked out at the sea, looking for some escape route, some way to end the night, get back home. Turn on
The Tonight Show.
Crawl into bed and sleep until noon.
“So what .
.
. they’re tearing it down.”
Tim grabbed him hard. “There’s nothing like it anywhere, Will. We could see it, at night. A private fucking tour. It would be the highlight of our senior year.”
Tim always cursed when he argued for something. Sometimes — in the middle of a debate on nuclear nonproliferation — Will thought Tim might lose it.
As if he’d say, screw the Affirmative’s plan. It won’t fuckin’ work.
“I don’t know,” Will said.
Then Whalen, the rocky sailor, was there, grinning ear-to-ear.
Trying to regain his land legs.
“I’m game,” he said. “Why not?”
Sure, Will thought. Whalen was trying to reclaim some respect after his little show. He’d agree to anything just about now.
“How about you, Mikey?” Whalen said.
Narrio laughed.
“Great,” Narrio said.
“Kiff?” Tim said.
Kiff looked lost, deflated. But he looked up, still grim-faced, and nodded.
In a few seconds a big decision had been made. And then the potato was passed back to Will.
“Will?” Tim said.
He shook his head.
The water was black and oily. The streetlight made a tiny sputtering noise, as if the bulb was on its last legs. “I don’t know.”
“C’mon, Will. Don’t be a pussy.” Tim came close, pushing his body right up to Will’s. “We’ll run in and right through the place. Then we’ll go for some food .
.
. promise.”
“I’ll pass on the food,” Whalen said, laughing, echoed by Narrio’s braying.
“What do you say?”
And Will said, “Okay,” thinking …
Thinking .
.
. that if nothing else, at least we’d get off the rocks.
He turned and led the way, quickly, up to the road.
* * *
They were halfway to the subway station, past the empty field covered with tall grass that blew in the sea breeze, when Will stopped.
Froze in his tracks.
And he remembered.
“Shit,” he said.
Tim turned to him. “What is it?”
“I left my books back there,” Will said.
Because I wanted to get away so badly.
Tim nodded. Somehow, the others had all remembered, even drunken Narrio with his worn St. Jerome’s Preparatory School bag.
Tim nodded. “Uh-huh. We’ll walk slow,” he said. “And meet you at the subway.”
Right, thought Will. While I turn and walk back to the rocks, to the water.
All by my lonesome.
Whalen, without hesitating, turned and started walking away in the direction of the station. “Get a move on, Dunnigan.”
The others followed, while Tim nodded, as if it was okay, and said, “We’ll see you there.”
Will turned. To look at the water, the dwarf houses, the eerie field, abandoned and dead.
He took a breath.
And he started running.
For a second he thought that he had come to the wrong spot. It all looked different, the slabs of broken concrete, the water crashing over them. The lines of streetlights, spaced so far apart.
Except — no — this was right. The nearest streetlight glowed more dully than the others. And he saw the stone with faint markings, the circle, the pointed star.
That seemed like years ago.
Now it was there, like a child’s scribble on the street or sidewalk, dotted with clumps of Whalen’s vomit.
Where are my books? he thought.
I’ve got to find my books.
He stepped down onto the rocks.
Splash! The water smashed right next to him. He stood right by the water’s edge. The black water that sent a tiny phosphorescent spray into the air.
Will came down here so that he could turn and look up, searching for a lump that he’d recognize as his books. There was no color here. Just gray and black.
If my books are in the shadow of one of the stones, he thought, I’ll never see them.
He looked all around. He saw the bag from the liquor store. He saw the bits of charcoal that Kiff had used. Some cigarette butts crushed into the stone.