Terry Brooks - Running With The Demon

In the cool, dark confines of Scrubby's Bar, at the west edge of town j ust off Lincoln Highway, Deny Howe sat alone at one end of the serving counter, nursing a beer and mumbling unintelligibly of his plans for MidCon to a creature that no one else could see.

It was nearing five o'clock, the sun sinking west and the dinner hour approaching, when Nest and her friends gathered up their fishing gear and the last few cans of pop and made their way back through the park. They climbed from the old boat launch (abandoned now since Riverside had bought the land and closed the road leading in), gained the heights of the cemetery, and followed the fence line back along the bluff face to where the cliffs dropped away and the park began. They wormed their way through a gap in the chain–link, Jared and Robert spreading the jagged edges wide for the girls, followed the turnaround past the Indian mounds, and angled through the trees and the playgrounds toward the ball diamonds. The heat lingered even with the sun's slow westward descent, a sullen, brooding presence at the edges of the shade. In the darker stretches of the spruce and pine, where the boughs grew thick and the shadows never faded, amber eyes as flat and hard as stone peered out in cold appraisal. Nest, who alone could see them, was reminded of the increasing boldness of the feeders and was troubled anew by what it meant.

Robert Heppler took a deep drink from his can of Coke, then belched loudly at Brianna Brown and said with supreme insincerity, "Sorry."

Brianna pulled a face. She was small and pretty with delicate features and thick, wavy dark hair. "You're disgusting, Robert!"

"Hey, it's a natural function of the body." Robert tried his best to look put–upon. Short and wiry, with a mischievous face, a shock of unruly white–blond hair, Robert eventually aggravated everyone he came in contact with–particularly Brianna Brown.

"There is nothing natural about anything you do!" Brianna snapped irritably, although there wasn't quite enough force behind the retort to cause any of the others to be concerned. The feud between Robert and Brianna was long–standing. It had become a condition of their lives. No one thought much about it anymore, except where the occasional flare–up exacerbated feelings so thoroughly that no one could get any peace. That had happened only once of late, early in the summer, when Robert had managed to hide a red fizzie in the lining of Brianna's swimsuit just before she went into the pool at Lawrence Park. Mortified beyond any expression of outrage at the resulting red stain, Brianna would have killed Robert if she could have gotten her hands on him. As it was, she hadn't said a word to him for almost two weeks afterward, not until he apologized in front of everyone and admitted he had behaved in a stupid and childish manner–and even that seemed to please Robert in some bizarre way that probably not even he could fathom.

"No, listen, I read this in a report." Robert looked around to be sure they were all listening. "Belching and farting are necessary bodily functions. They release gases that would otherwise poison the body. You know about the exploding cows?"

"Oh, Robert!" Cass Minter rolled her eyes.

"No, cows can explode if enough gas builds up inside them. It's a medical condition. They produce all this methane gas when they digest grass. If they don't get rid of it, it can make them explode. There was this whole article on it. I guess it's like what happens to milk cows if you don't milk them." He took another drink of Coke and belched again. With Robert, you never knew if he was making it up. "Think about what could happen to us if we stopped belching."

"Maybe you should give up drinking Coke," Cass suggested dryly. She was a big, heavyset girl with a round, cheerful face and intelligent green eyes. She always wore jeans and loose–fitting shirts, an unspoken concession to her weight, and her lank brown hair looked as if no comb had passed through it any time in recent memory. Cass was Nest's oldest friend, from all the way back to when they were in second grade together. She winked at Nest now. "Maybe you should stick to tomato juice, Robert."

Robert Heppler hated tomato juice. He'd been forced to drink it once at camp, compelled to do so by a counselor in front of a dozen other campers, after which he had promptly vomited it up again. It was a point of honor with him that he would die before he ever did that again.

"Where did you read all this, anyway?" Jared Scott asked with benign interest.

Robert shrugged. "On the Internet."

"You know, you can't believe everything you read," Brianna declared, repeating something her mother frequently told her.

"Well, duh!" Robert sneered. "Anyway, this was a Dave Barry article."

"Dave Barry?" Cass was in stitches. "Now there's a reliable source. I suppose you get your world news from Liz Smith."

Robert stopped and slowly turned to face her. "Oh, I am cut to the quick!" He looked pointedly at Nest. "Like I can't tell the difference between what's rebable and what isn't, right?"

"Leave me out of this," Nest begged.

"Don't be so difficult, Robert!" Brianna chided, smoothing down her spotless white shorts. Only Brianna would wear white shorts to go fishing and somehow manage to keep them white.

"Difficult? I'm not difficult! Am I?" He threw up his hands. "Jared, am I?"

But Jared Scott was staring blankly at nothing, his face calm, his expression detached, as if he had removed himself entirely from everything that was happening around him and gone somewhere else. He was having another episode, Nest realized–his third that afternoon. The medicine he was taking didn't seem to be helping a whole lot. At least his epilepsy never did much more than it was doing now. It just took him away for a while and then brought him back again, snipping out small spaces in his life, like panels cut from a comic book.

"Well, anyway, I don't think I'm difficult." Robert turned back to Brianna. "I can't help it if I'm interested in learning about stuff. What am I supposed to do–stop reading?"

Brianna sighed impatiently. "You could at least stop being so dramatic!"

"Oh, now I'm too dramatic, am I? Gee, first I'm too difficult and then I'm too dramatic! How ever will I get on with my life?"

"We all ponder that dilemma on a daily basis," Cass observed archly.

"You spend too much time in front of your computer!" Bri–anna snapped.

"Well, you spend too much time in front of your mirror!" Robert snapped right back.

It was no secret that Brianna devoted an inordinate amount of time to looking good, in large part as the result of having a mother who was a hairdresser and who firmly believed that makeup and clothes made the difference in a young girl's lot in life. From the tune her daughter was old enough to pay attention, Brianna's mother had instilled in her the need to "look the part," as she was fond of putting it, training her to style her hair and do her makeup and providing her with an extensive wardrobe of matching outfits that Brianna was required to wear whatever the occasion–even on an outing that centered around fishing. Lately Brianna had begun to chafe a bit under the constraints of her mother's rigid expectations, but Mom still held the parental reins with a firm grip and full–blown rebellion was a year or so away.

The mirror crack brought an angry flush to Brianna Brown's face, and she glared hotly at Robert.

Cass Minter was quick to intervene. "You both spend too much tune in front of lighted screens, Robert" — she gave Nest another wink — "but in Brianna's case the results are more obviously successful."

Nest laughed softly in spite of herself. She envied Brianna's smooth curves, her flawless skin, and her soft, feminine look. She was beautiful in a way that Nest never would be. Her tiny, grade–school girl's body was developing curves on schedule while Nest's simply refused to budge. Boys looked at Brianna and were made hungry and awestruck. When they looked at Nest, they were left indifferent.