His name was Thomas Davies and he was eleven years old.
He had been eight when Grendel stole him away.
During those three years, Thomas, one of the youngest children from the House of Heorot in the burg of the Scyldings, underwent one of the worst transformations afflicted upon any of them: burned skin hung about his neck in brownish wattles; one yellowed eye, looking like a rotten boiled egg, was almost completely hidden underneath the drooping scar tissue of his forehead; his mouth twisted downward on both sides with pockets of dead, greasy-looking flesh at the corners; and his cheeks resembled the globs of congealed wax that form at the base of a candle. His only normal-looking facial feature was his left eye: it was a startling bright blue, an azure gemstone. Buried as it was in that ruined face, its vibrancy seemed a cruel joke.
He looked nothing like the smiling, pink-cheeked boy from his second grade school picture, the one his parents circulated after his disappearance.
Thomas rarely spoke; mostly he sang to himself, a lullaby his mother used to sing when he was very young:
"Sleep my child and peace attend thee,
All through the night.
Guardian angels God will send thee,
All through the night.
Soft the drowsy hours are creeping,
Hill and dale in slumber sleeping,
I my loved ones' watch am keeping,
All through the night..."
Except Thomas never once sang it correctly (I knew this because my mother used to sing the same lullaby to me when I was a kid). He did fine until the "Hill and dale" line: every time he got to it, he sang, "Bill and Dale look dum-ber sleeping..." I asked him why he sang it that way when he knew the actual words.
"It was a joke. Mom always laughed when we sang it together because I messed up the words on purpose."
When it came time to deliver him I was the one who remembered that, and as reward for my good memory found myself standing behind an oak tree on the opposite side of the street on which Thomas's parents lived. It was three in the morning and there was a chunk of panic in my throat, a cell phone in my hand, and the glowing red point of a laser-sight scope centered on my chest; at the other end of the vein-thin infrared beam, hidden somewhere among the foliage garnishing this middle-class Midwestern neighborhood, a young man holding a .45-caliber Heckler and Koch USP Tactical pistol with a silencer attachment was watching my every move, steady and focused.
I stared at the phone in my hand as if it were some small, dead thing I'd picked up from the middle of the road. In a minute or so I was to punch in a number, and hopefully someone on the other end would answer. If I said anything other than what I'd been told to say, if I deviated even slightly from the context, if I so much as hinted that I was being forced to do this, the young man holding the pistol would squeeze the trigger and my torso would open up like some grisly flower.
I stood in silence, well out of reach from the streetlights' gleam, watching as a young woman named Rebecca came around the far corner pushing Thomas in his wheelchair. Even from where I stood—some twenty yards away—I could see the seepage below Thomas's knees where his legs had been removed ten days ago. Thomas's arms were shaking and he kept reaching up to rub his eye. Rebecca pushed him past several darkened homes, then turned up the walk to an old but impeccably-maintained Victorian. She stopped, bent down, set the brakes on the wheelchair, and then came around to face him, setting two large brown grocery sacks in his lap.
I couldn't hear what they were saying to one another but her body language told all I needed to know. The flicker from the streetlights glinted from Rebecca's eyes and the tears running down her cheeks. She knelt down as best she could and took hold of Thomas's trembling hands, then leaned in against him, whispering in his ear. After a moment Thomas freed his hands and wrapped his arms around her. Rebecca began to return the embrace, hesitated a moment, and then gave in. They held each other in silence. I could not even begin to imagine what was passing between them. I can imagine better now, but I try not to.
Rebecca was the one to break the embrace. She stood, wiped her eyes, tried to smile but didn't make it, and then simply walked away, leaving him parked halfway up the walk.
The beam from the laser-sight jumped up and down against my chest. Twice.
This was the first signal.
As soon as Rebecca was out of sight I was to count to sixty, then make the call.
She rounded the corner and paused. Her head made a slight half-turn as if she were about to take a last look at Thomas, but she stopped herself and resumed walking. Our transportation was parked farther down that street, in an area where there was not a streetlight; by the time I reached sixty she would be back inside the vehicle, waiting for the rest of us.
Hidden somewhere near the young man with the pistol was another kid named Arnold. He was wearing a set of headphones and was pointing a twenty-inch parabolic dish in my direction. Grendel had ordered it through some online surveillance equipment company. It ran on three AAA batteries and could listen in on any conversation within three hundred yards with pinpoint accuracy. He wouldn't need to hear what was said by the person I was about to call, he was listening only for my side of the conversation; one mistake, and he'd tell the young man with the pistol and that, as they say, would be that.
They were an organized bunch, no argument there.
When I counted forty I thumbed the "talk" button and—
—and this isn't right. Not at all. Sorry. Dammit. I said I wouldn't know where to begin.
The biggest part of the mess.
Not always so obvious at first glance, I'm afraid....
3. The Twin Butter Dishes
I was stranded at a truck-stop near Jefferson City, Missouri. It happened like this:
The drive from Cedar Hill to Topeka had taken the better part of eighteen hours because the car I was driving (borrowed from my brother-in-law's used car business—he'd assured me it was "...in top-notch condition!") kept overheating and frequent service-station stops were required. The list of ailments it suffered from kept growing exponentially the farther I traveled, and one mechanic even went so far as to say, "Please tell me that you didn't actually walk onto a lot and buy this goddamn nightmare from someone. The only things holding that engine together are spit and wishes, and I'm not all that sure about the spit. I've done all I can. I hope you make it home. I'll remember you in my prayers."
I decided something along that line would be a good slogan for my brother-in-law's business:
Perry's Used Cars: We'll Pray You Make It Home.
Despite the mechanic's dire assessment, I made it to Topeka and did what I'd gone there to do. It took about as long as I'd expected, and after three days of dealing with redneck Kansas relatives I was more than ready for the comfortable, white-bread blandness of Ohio. I packed up what was needed, said my goodbyes, got onto I-670 East, and had driven a couple of hundred miles toward home—almost far enough away from Topeka to allow myself to feel relief—when the engine made a sound somewhere between a screech and Godzilla's roar and did not so much stop as it did throw up its arms and say Good-bye, cruel world! Smoke and steam billowed from underneath the hood in heavy tendrils that quickly formed heavier clouds, filling the car with a strong, burnt, metallic odor. I count myself lucky to have made it over to the emergency lane without hitting another vehicle. I sat there for a few moments, promising myself I'd remain calm—I'd kept it together for the last three days, I could keep it together now—then began beating the steering wheel with my fists and screaming like a madman. The car was singularly unimpressed. I waited until the cloud thinned out, then tried starting the engine once more. Every time I turned the key and pressed down on the gas pedal, the engine made its feelings known.