Now Lundy opened his eyes. Unlike his violator, he had the good grace to blush, his hand going up between his legs to conceal his sex.
"I told you, get out!" the sodomite said. Bosley didn't retreat; nor did he advance. It was the boy who made the next move. Sliding forward until he'd disengaged himself he turned to his impaler and said, "Make him go."
The sodomite started to pull up his pants, and while he was doing so, and vulnerable, Bosley took the offensive.
"Animals!" he raged, coming at the sodomite with his raised arms.
"Owen!" the boy yelled, but the warning came too late.
As the violator started to straighten up, Bosley's weight struck him, carrying him backwards in a flailing stumble.
The boy was getting to his feet now-Bosley saw him from the corner of his eye-a wordless cry of rage roaring from his throat. Bosley glanced round at him, saw the feral look on his sallow face, teeth bared, eyes wild, and started to step out of his path. But as he did so he heard the sound of breaking glass, and looked back to see that the sodomite had fallen against the window. He had a moment only to register the fact, then the Lundy boy was on him, naked and wet.
Panic erupted in him, and a shrill sound escaped him. He tried to thrust Lundy off him, but the boy was strong. He clung to Bosley as if he wanted kisses; pressed his body hard against Bosley's body, his breath hot on Bosley's face.
"No-no-no!" Bosley shrieked, thrashing to free himself of the embrace. He succeeded in detaching himself, and retreated, gasping, almost sobbing, towards the door.
Only then did he realize that the sodomite had gone.
"Oh Christ... " he murmured, meaning to begin a prayer. But further words failed him. All he could do was stumble back towards the broken window, murmuring the same words over and over. "Oh Christ. Oh Christ. Oh... "
Lundy ignored him now. "Owen!" he yelled and was at the window in three strides, slicing his body on the jagged glass as he leaned out. Bosley was beside him a moment later, his litany ceased, and there on the sidewalk below lay the sodomite, his trousers still halfway down his thighs. Traffic had come to a halt at the crossroads, and horns were already blaring in all directions.
. Dizzy with vertigo and panic, Bosley retreated from the window.
"Fuckhead!" the Lundy kid yelled, and apparently thinking Bosley meant to escape, came after him afresh, blood running from his wounded flank.
Bosley tried to avoid the youth's fists, but his heel caught in a tangle of discarded clothes and he fell backwards, the breath knocked from him when he hit the ground. Lundy was on him in a second, setting his skinny butt on Bosley's chest and pinning Bosley's upper arms with his knees. That was how they were found, when the first witnesses came racing up the stairs: Bosley on his back, sobbing Oh Christ, Oh rist, Oh Christ while the naked, wounded Seth Lundy kept im nailed to the boards.
Whatever speculations Erwin had entertained where death was concerned, he'd not expected the experience to be hard on the feet. But he'd walked further in the last six hours than in the previous two months. Out from the house, then back to the house, then down to Kitty's Diner, then back to the house again, and now, drawn by the sight of an ambulance careening down Cascade Street, back to the diner again. Or rather, to the opposite corner, in time to see a man who'd been pushed from an upper window being loaded into the back of an ambulance and taken off to Silverton. He hung around the crowd, picking up clues as to what had happened, and quickly pieced the story together. Apparently Bosley Cowhick had done the deed, having discovered the pushee in the middle of some liaison with a local boy. Erwin knew Bosley by reputation only: as a philanthropist at Christmas, when he and several good Christian souls made it their business to take a hot dinner to the elderly and the housebound, and as a rabid letter writer (barely a month would go by without a missive in the Register noting some fresh evidence of Godlessness in the community). He had never met the man, nor could even bring his face to mind. But if it was notoriety he was after, he'd plainly got it this afternoon.
"Damn strange," he heard somebody say, and scanning the dispersing crowd saw a man in his late fifties, early sixties, gray hair, gray eyes, badly fitting suit, looking straight at him.
"Are you talking to me?" Erwin said. :'Yeah," said the other, "I was saying, it's damn strange-2' 'You can't be." "Can't be what?" "Can't be talking to me. I'm dead."
"That makes two of us," the other man replied, "I was saying, I've seen some damn strange things around here over the years."
"You're dead too?" Erwin said, amazed and relieved. Finally, somebody to talk to.
"Of course," the man said. "There's a few of us around town. Where did you come in from?"
"I didn't."
"You mean you're a local man?"
"Yeah. I only just, you know-"
"Died. You can say it."
"Died."
"Only some people come in for the Festival. they make a weekend of it."
"Dead people."
"Sure. Hey, why not? A parade's a parade, right? A few of us even tag along, you know, between the floats. Anything for a laugh. You gotta laugh, right, or you'd break your heart. Is that what happened? Heart attack?"
"No... " Erwin said, still too surprised by this turn of events to have his thoughts in order. "No, I... I was-"
"Recent, was it? It's cold in the beginning. But you get used to that. Hell, you can get used to anything, right? Long as you don't start looking back, regretting things, 'cause there's not a hell of a lot you can do about it."
"Is that right?"
"We're just hanging on awhile, that's all. What's your name, by the way?" "Erwin Toothaker." "I'm Richard Dolan." "Dolan? The candy store owner?" The man smiled. "That's me," he said. He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder at the empty building. "This was my store, back in the good old days. Actually, they weren't so good. It's just, you know, when you look back-"
"The past's always prettier." "That's right. The past's always-" He halted, frowning. "Say, were you around when I owned the store?" "No."
"So how the hell do you know about it?" "I heard a confession by a friend of yours." Dolan's easy smile faded. "Oh?" he said. "Who's that?" "Lyle McPherson?" "He wrote a confession?" "Yep. And it got lost, till I found it."
"Sonofabitch."
"Is he, I mean McPherson, is he still... in the vicinity?"
"You mean is he like us? No. Some people hang around, some people don't," Dolan shrugged. "Maybe they move on, somewhere or other, maybe they just"-he clicked his fingers-"disappear. I guess I wanted to stay and he didn't." "These aren't our real bodies, you know that?" Erwin said. "I mean, I've seen mine."
"Yeah, I got to see mine too. Not a pretty sight." He raised his hands in front of him, scrutinizing his palms. "But whatever we're made of," he said, "it's better than nothing. And you know it's no better or worse than living. You get good days, you get bad days... " He trailed away, his gaze going to the middle of the street. "'Cept I think maybe all that's coming' to an end."
"What makes you say that?"
Dolan drew a deep breath. "After a while you get to feel the rhythm of things, in a way you can't when you're living. Like smoke."
:'What's like smoke?" he said.
'We are. Floatin' around, not quite solid, not quite not. And when there's something weird in the wind, smoke knows."
"Really?"
"You'll get the hang of it."
"Maybe I already did."