IT [en]

    He glanced around fiercely at the others, and what came out was something else from that summer, something that sounded both impossibly archaic and exactly right: 'Dummy up! All of you! Not one sound! Just dummy up!'

    Rich wiped a hand across his mouth. Mike's complexion had gone a dirty gray, but he nodded at Bill. All of them moved away from the table. Bill had not opened his own fortune cookie, but now he could see its sides moving slowly in and out - bulge and relax, bulge and relax, bulge and relax - as his own party-favor tried to escape.

    'Mmmmmph!' Beverly said against his hand again, her breath tickling his palm.

    'Dummy up, Bev,' he said, and took his hand away.

    Her face seemed to be all eyes. Her mouth twitched. 'Bill . . . Bill, did you see . . . ' Her eyes strayed back to the cricket and then fixed there. The cricket appeared to be dying. Its rugose eyes stared back at her, and presently Beverly began to moan.

    'Quh-Quh-Quit that,' he said grimly. 'Pull back to the table.'

    'I can't, Billy, I can't get near that thi - '

    'You can! You h-have to!' He heard footsteps, light and quick, coming up the short hall on the other side of the beaded curtain. He looked around at the others. 'All of you! Pull up to the table! Talk! Look natural!'

    Beverly looked at him, eyes pleading, and Bill shook his head. He sat down and pulled his chair in, trying not to look at the fortune cookie on his plate. It had swelled like some unimaginable boil which was filling with pus. And still it pulsed slowly in and out. I could have bitten into that, he thought faintly.

    Eddie triggered his aspirator down his throat again, gasping mist into his lungs in a long, thin screaming sound.

    'So who do you think's going to win the pennant?' Bill asked Mike, smiling insanely. Rose came through the curtain just then, her face politely questioning. Out of the corner of his eye Bill saw that Bev had pulled up to the table again. Good girl, he thought.

    'I think the Chicago Bears look good,' Mike said.

    'Everything is all right?' Rose asked.

    'F-Fine,' Bill said. He cocked a thumb in Eddie's direction. 'Our friend had an asthma attack. He took his medication. He's better now.'

    Rose looked at Eddie, concerned.

    'Better,' Eddie wheezed.

    'You would like that I clear now?'

    'Very shortly,' Mike said, and offered a large false smile.

    'Was good?' Her eyes surveyed the table again, a bit of doubt overlaying a deep well of serenity. She did not see the cricket, the eye, the teeth, or the way Bill's fortune cookie appeared to be breathing. Her eye similarly passed over the bloodstain splotched on the tablecloth without trouble.

    'Everything was very good,' Beverly said, and smiled - a more natural smile than either Bill's or Mike's. It seemed to set Rose's mind at rest, convinced her that if something had gone wrong in here, it had been the fault of neither Rose's service nor her kitchen. Girl's got a lot of guts, Bill thought.

    'Fortunes were good?' Rose asked.

    'Well,' Richie said, 'I don't know about the others, but I for one got a real eyeful.'

    Bill heard a minute cracking sound. He looked down at his plate and saw a leg poking blindly out of his fortune cookie. It scraped at his plate.

    I could have bitten into that, he thought again, but held onto his smile. 'Very fine,' he said.

    Richie was looking at Bill's plate. A great grayish-black fly was slowing birthing itself from the collapsing remains of his cookie. It buzzed weakly. Yellowish goo flowed sluggishly out of the cookie and puddled on the tablecloth. There was a smell now, the bland thick smell of an infected wound.

    'Well, if I can help you in no way at this moment . . . '

    'Not right now,' Ben said. 'A wonderful meal. Most . . . most unusual.'

    'I leave you then,' she said, and bowed out through the beaded curtain. The beads were still swaying and clacking together when all of them pushed away from the table again.

    'What is it?' Ben asked huskily, looking at the thing on Bill's plate.

    'A fly,' Bill said. 'A mutant fly. Courtesy of a writer named George Langla-han, I think. He wrote a story called "The Fly." A movie was made out of it - not a terribly good one. But the story scared the bejesus out of me. It's up to Its old tricks, all right. That fly business has been on my mind a lot lately, because I've sort of been planning this novel - Roadbugs, I've been thinking of calling it. I know the title sounds p-pretty stupid, but you see - '

    'Excuse me,' Beverly said distantly. 'I have to vomit, I think.'

    She was gone before any of the men could rise.

    Bill shook out his napkin and threw it over the fly, which was the size of a baby sparrow. Nothing so large could have come from something as small as a Chinese fortune cookie . . . but it had. It buzzed twice under the napkin and then fell silent.

    'Jesus,' Eddie said faintly.

    'Let's get the righteous fuck out of here,' Mike said. 'We can meet Bev in the lobby.'

    Beverly was just coming out of the women's room as they gathered by the cash register. She looked pale but composed. Mike paid the check, kissed Rose's cheek, and then they all went out into the rainy afternoon.

    'Does this change anyone's mind?' Mike asked.

    'I don't think it changes mine,'Ben said.

    'No,' Eddie said.

    'What mind?' Richie said.

    Bill shook his head and then looked at Beverly.

    'I'm staying,' she said. 'Bill, what did you mean when you said It's up to Its old tricks?'

    'I've been thinking about writing a bug story,' he said. 'That Langlahan story had woven itself into my thinking. And so I saw a fly. Yours was blood, Beverly. Why was blood on your mind?'

    'I guess because of the blood from the drain,' Beverly said at once. 'The blood that came out of the bathroom drain in the old place, when I was eleven.' But was that really it? She didn't really think so. Because what had flashed immediately to mind when the blood spurted across her fingers in a warm little jet had been the bloody footprint she had left behind her after stepping on the broken perfume bottle. Tom. And

    (Bevvie sometimes I worry a lot)

    her father.

    'You got a bug, too,' Bill said to Eddie. 'Why?'

    'Not just a bug,' Eddie said. 'A cricket. There are crickets in our basement. Two-hundred-thousand-dollar house and we can't get rid of the crickets. They drive us crazy at night. A couple of nights before Mike called, I had a really terrible nightmare. I dreamed I woke up and my bed was full of crickets. I was trying to shoot them with my aspirator, but all it would do when I squeezed it was make crackling noises, and just before I woke up I realized it was full of crickets, too.'

    'The hostess didn't see any of it,' Ben said. He looked at Beverly. 'Like your folks never saw the blood that came out of the drain, even though it was everywhere.'

    'Yes,' she said.

    They stood looking at each other in the fine spring rain.

    Mike looked at his watch. 'There'll be a bus in twenty minutes or so,' he said, 'or I can take four of you in my car, if we cram. Or I can call some cabs. Whatever way you want to do it.'

    'I think I'm going to walk from here,' Bill said. 'I don't know where I'm going, but a little fresh air seems like a great idea along about now.'

    'I'm going to call a cab,' Ben said.

    'I'll share it with you, if you'll drop me off downtown,' Richie said.

    'Okay. Where you going?'

    Richie shrugged.'Not really sure yet.'

    The others elected to wait for the bus.

    'Seven tonight,' Mike reminded. 'And be careful, all of you.' They agreed to be careful, although Bill did not know how you could truthfully make a promise like that when dealing with such a formidable array of unknown factors.