Different Seasons by Stephen King

  The big kids advanced in a line, their feet splashing through the bog, which was now one big sludgy puddle because of the storm. The body of Ray Brower lay at our feet like a waterlogged barrel. I got ready to fight ... and that was when Chris fired the pistol he had hawked out of his old man's dresser.

  KA-BLAM!

  God, what a wonderful sound that was! Charlie Hogan jumped right up into the air. Ace Merrill, who had been staring straight at me, now jerked around and looked at Chris. His mouth made that O again. Eyeball looked absolutely astounded.

  "Hey, Chris, that's Daddy's," he said. "You're gonna get the tar whaled out of you--"

  "That's nothing to what you'll get," Chris said. His face was horribly pale, and all the life in him seemed to have been sucked upward, into his eyes. They blazed out of his face.

  "Gordie was right, you're nothing but a bunch of cheap hoods. Charlie and Billy didn't want their fuckin dibs and you all know it. We wouldn't have walked way to fuck out here if they said they did. They just went someplace and puked the story up and let Ace Merrill do their thinkin for them." His voice rose to a scream. "But you ain't gonna get him, do you hear me?"

  "Now listen," Ace said. "You better put that down before you take your foot off with it. You ain't got the sack to shoot a woodchuck." He began to walk forward again, smiling his gentle smile as he came. "You're just a sawed-off pint-sized pissy-assed little runt and I'm gonna make you eat that fuckin gun."

  "Ace, if you don't stand still I'm going to shoot you. I swear to God."

  "You'll go to jayy-ail," Ace crooned, not even hesitating. He was still smiling. The others watched him with horrified fascination ... much the same way as Teddy and Vern and I were looking at Chris. Ace Merrill was the hardest case for miles around and I didn't think Chris could bluff him down. And what did that leave? Ace didn't think a twelve-year-old punk would actually shoot him. I thought he was wrong; I thought Chris would shoot Ace before he let Ace take his father's pistol away from him. In those few seconds I was sure there was going to be bad trouble, the worst I'd ever known. Killing trouble, maybe. And all of it over who got dibs on a dead body.

  Chris said softly, with great regret: "Where do you want it, Ace? Arm or leg? I can't pick. You pick for me."

  And Ace stopped.

  27

  His face sagged, and I saw sudden terror on it. It was Chris's tone rather than his actual words, I think; the real regret that things were going to go from bad to worse. If it was a bluff, it's still the best I've ever seen. The other big kids were totally convinced; their faces were squinched up as if someone had just touched a match to a cherry-bomb with a short fuse.

  Ace slowly got control of himself. The muscles in his face tightened again, his lips pressed together, and he looked at Chris the way you'd look at a man who has made a serious business proposition--to merge with your company, or handle your line of credit, or shoot your balls off. It was a waiting, almost curious expression, one that made you know that the terror was either gone or tightly lidded. Ace had recomputed the odds on not getting shot and had decided that they weren't as much in his favor as he had thought. But he was still dangerous--maybe more than before. Since then I've thought it was the rawest piece of brinkmanship I've ever seen. Neither of them was bluffing, they both meant business.

  "All right," Ace said softly, speaking to Chris. "But I know how you're going to come out of this, motherfuck."

  "No you don't," Chris said.

  "You little prick!" Eyeball said loudly. "You're gonna wind up in traction for this!"

  "Bite my bag," Chris told him.

  With an inarticulate sound of rage Eyeball started forward and Chris put a bullet into the water about ten feet in front of him. It kicked up a splash. Eyeball jumped back, cursing.

  "Okay, now what?" Ace asked.

  "Now you guys get into your cars and bomb on back to Castle Rock. After that I don't care. But you ain't getting him." He touched Ray Brower lightly, almost reverently, with the toe of one sopping sneaker. "You dig me?"

  "But we'll get you," Ace said. He was starting to smile again. "Don't you know that?"

  "You might. You might not."

  "We'll get you hard," Ace said, smiling. "We'll hurt you. I can't believe you don't know that. We'll put you all in the fuckin hospital with fuckin ruptures. Sincerely."

  "Oh, why don't you go home and fuck your mother some more? I hear she loves the way you do it."

  Ace's smile froze. "I'll kill you for that. Nobody ranks my mother."

  "I heard your mother fucks for bucks," Chris informed him, and as Ace began to pale, as his complexion began to approach Chris's own ghastly whiteness, he added: "In fact, I heard she throws blowjobs for jukebox nickels. I heard--"

  Then the storm came back, viciously, all at once. Only this time it was hail instead of rain. Instead of whispering or talking, the woods now seemed alive with hokey B-movie jungle drums--it was the sound of big icy hailstones honking off treetrunks. Stinging pebbles began to hit my shoulders--it felt as if some sentient, malevolent force were throwing them. Worse than that, they began to strike Ray Brower's upturned face with an awful splatting sound that reminded us of him again, of his terrible and unending patience.

  Vern caved in first, with a wailing scream. He fled up the embankment in huge, gangling strides. Teddy held out a minute longer, then ran after Vern, his hands held up over his head. On their side, Vince Desjardins floundered back under some nearby trees and Fuzzy Bracowicz joined him. But the others stood pat, and Ace began to grin again.

  "Stick with me, Gordie," Chris said in a low, shaky voice. "Stick with me, man."

  "I'm right here."

  "Go on, now," Chris said to Ace, and he was able, by some magic, to get the shakiness out of his voice. He sounded as if he were instructing a stupid infant.

  "We'll get you," Ace said. "We're not going to forget it, if that's what you're thinking. This is big time, baby."

  "That's fine. You just go on and do your getting another day."

  "We'll fuckin ambush you, Chambers. We'll--"

  "Get out!" Chris screamed, and levelled the gun. Ace stepped back.

  He looked at Chris a moment longer, nodded, then turned around. "Come on," he said to the others. He looked back over his shoulder at Chris and me once more. "Be seeing you."

  They went back into the screen of trees between the bog and the road. Chris and I stood perfectly still in spite of the hail that was welting us, reddening our skins, and piling up all around us like summer snow. We stood and listened and above the crazy calypso sound of the hail hitting the treetrunks we heard two cars start up.

  "Stay right here," Chris told me, and he started across the bog.

  "Chris!" I said, panicky.

  "I got to. Stay here."

  It seemed he was gone a very long time. I became convinced that either Ace or Eyeball had lurked behind and grabbed him. I stood my ground with nobody but Ray Brower for company and waited for somebody--anybody--to come back. After a while, Chris did.

  "We did it," he said. "They're gone."

  "You sure?"

  "Yeah. Both cars." He held his hands up over his head, locked together with the gun between them, and shook the double fist in a wry championship gesture. Then he dropped them and smiled at me. I think it was the saddest scaredest smile I ever saw. " 'Suck my fat one'--whoever told you you had a fat one, Lachance?"

  "Biggest one in four counties," I said. I was shaking all over.

  We looked at each other warmly for a second, and then, maybe embarrassed by what we were seeing, looked down together. A nasty thrill of fear shot through me, and the sudden splash/splash as Chris shifted his feet let me know that he had seen, too. Ray Brower's eyes had gone wide and white, starey and pupilless, like the eyes that look out at you from Grecian statuary. It only took a second to understand what had happened, but understanding didn't lessen the horror. His eyes had filled up with round white hailstones. Now they were melting and the water ran down
his cheeks as if he were weeping for his own grotesque position--a tatty prize to be fought over by two bunches of stupid hick kids. His clothes were also white with hail. He seemed to be lying in his own shroud.

  "Oh, Gordie, hey," Chris said shakily. "Say-hey, man. What a creepshow for him."

  "I don't think he knows--"

  "Maybe that was his ghost we heard. Maybe he knew this was gonna happen. What a fuckin creepshow, I'm sincere."

  Branches crackled behind us. I whirled, sure they had flanked us, but Chris went back to contemplating the body after one short, almost casual glance. It was Vern and Teddy, their jeans soaked black and plastered to their legs, both of them grinning like dogs that have been sucking eggs.

  "What are we gonna do, man?" Chris asked, and I felt a weird chill steal through me. Maybe he was talking to me, maybe he was ... but he was still looking down at the body.

  "We're gonna take him back, ain't we?" Teddy asked, puzzled. "We're gonna be heroes. Ain't that right?" He looked from Chris to me and back to Chris again.

  Chris looked up as if startled out of a dream. His lip curled. He took big steps toward Teddy, planted both hands on Teddy's chest, and pushed him roughly backwards. Teddy stumbled, pinwheeled his arms for balance, then sat down with a soggy splash. He blinked up at Chris like a surprised muskrat. Vern was looking warily at Chris, as if he feared madness. Perhaps that wasn't far from the mark.

  "You keep your trap shut," Chris said to Teddy. "Paratroops over the side my ass. You lousy rubber chicken."

  "It was the hail!" Teddy cried out, angry and ashamed. "It wasn't those guys, Chris! I'm ascared of storms! I can't help it! I would have taken all of em on at once, I swear on my mother's name! But I'm ascared of storms! Shit! I can't help it!" He began to cry again, sitting there in the water.

  "What about you?" Chris asked, turning to Vern. "Are you scared of storms, too?"

  Vern shook his head vacuously, still astounded by Chris's rage. "Hey, man, I thought we was all runnin."

  "You must be a mind-reader then, because you ran first."

  Vern swallowed twice and said nothing.

  Chris stared at him, his eyes sullen and wild. Then he turned to me. "Going to build him a litter, Gordie."

  "If you say so, Chris."

  "Sure! Like in Scouts." His voice had begun to climb into strange, reedy levels. "Just like in the fuckin Scouts. A litter--poles and shirts. Like in the handbook. Right, Gordie?"

  "Yeah. If you want. But what if those guys--"

  "Fuck those guys!" he screamed. "You're all a bunch of chickens! Fuck off, creeps!"

  "Chris, they could call the Constable. To get back at us."

  "He's ours and we're gonna take him OUT!"

  "Those guys would say anything to get us in dutch," I told him. My words sounded thin, stupid, sick with the flu. "Say anything and then lie each other up. You know how people can get other people in trouble telling lies, man. Like with the milk-mo--"

  "I DON'T CARE! he screamed, and lunged at me with his fists up. But one of his feet struck Ray Brower's ribcage with a soggy thump, making the body rock. He tripped and fell full-length and I waited for him to get up and maybe punch me in the mouth but instead he lay where he had fallen, head pointing toward the embankment, arms stretched out over his head like a diver about to execute, in the exact posture Ray Brower had been in when we found him. I looked wildly at Chris's feet to make sure his sneakers were still on. Then he began to cry and scream, his body bucking in the muddy water, splashing it around, fists drumming up and down in it, head twisting from side to side. Teddy and Vern were staring at him, agog, because nobody had ever seen Chris Chambers cry. After a moment or two I walked back to the embankment, climbed it, and sat down on one of the rails. Teddy and Vern followed me. And we sat there in the rain, not talking, looking like those three Monkeys of Virtue they sell in dimestores and those sleazy gift-shops that always look like they are tottering on the edge of bankruptcy.

  28

  It was twenty minutes before Chris climbed the embankment to sit down beside us. The clouds had begun to break. Spears of sun came down through the rips. The bushes seemed to have gone three shades darker green in the last forty-five minutes. He was mud all the way up one side and down the other. His hair was standing up in muddy spikes. The only clean parts of him were the whitewashed circles around his eyes.

  "You're right, Gordie," he said. "Nobody gets last dibs. Goocher all around, huh?"

  I nodded. Five minutes passed. No one said anything. And I happened to have a thought--just in case they did call Bannerman. I went back down the embankment and over to where Chris had been standing. I got down on my knees and began to comb carefully through the water and marshgrass with my fingers.

  "What you doing?" Teddy asked, joining me.

  "It's to your left, I think," Chris said, and pointed.

  I looked there and after a minute or two I found both shell casings. They winked in the fresh sunlight. I gave them to Chris. He nodded and stuffed them into a pocket of his jeans.

  "Now we go," Chris said.

  "Hey, come on!" Teddy yelled, in real agony. "I wanna take 'im!"

  "Listen, dummy," Chris said, "if we take him back we could all wind up in the reformatory. It's like Gordie says. Those guys could make up any story they wanted to. What if they said we killed him, huh? How would you like that?"

  "I don't give a damn," Teddy said sulkily. Then he looked at us with absurd hope. "Besides, we might only get a couple of months or so. As excessories. I mean, we're only twelve fuckin years old, they ain't gonna put us in Shawshank."

  Chris said softly: "You can't get in the Army if you got a record, Teddy."

  I was pretty sure that was nothing but a bald-faced lie--but somehow this didn't seem the time to say so. Teddy just looked at Chris for a long time, his mouth trembling. Finally he managed to squeak out: "No shit?"

  "Ask Gordie."

  He looked at me hopefully.

  "He's right," I said, feeling like a great big turd. "He's right, Teddy. First thing they do when you volunteer is to check your name through R&I."

  "Holy God!"

  "We're gonna shag ass back to the trestle," Chris said.

  "Then we'll get off the tracks and come into Castle Rock from the other direction. If people ask where we were, we'll say we went campin up on Brickyard Hill and got lost."

  "Milo Pressman knows better," I said. "That creep at the Florida Market does, too."

  "Well, we'll say Milo scared us and that's when we decided to go up on the Brickyard."

  I nodded. That might work. If Vern and Teddy could remember to stick to it.

  "What about if our folks get together?" Vern asked.

  "You worry about it if you want," Chris said. "My dad'll still be juiced up."

  "Come on, then," Vern said, eyeing the screen of trees between us and the Back Harlow Road. He looked like he expected Bannerman, along with a brace of bloodhounds, to come crashing through at any moment. "Let's get while the gettin's good."

  We were all on our feet now, ready to go. The birds were singing like crazy, pleased with the rain and the shine and the worms and just about everything in the world, I guess. We all turned around, as if pulled on strings, and looked back at Ray Brower.

  He was lying there, alone again. His arms had flopped out when we turned him over and now he was sort of spreadeagled, as if to welcome the sunshine. For a moment it seemed all right, a more natural deathscene than any ever constructed for a viewing-room audience by a mortician. Then you saw the bruise, the caked blood on the chin and under the nose, and the way the corpse was beginning to bloat. You saw that the bluebottles had come out with the sun and that they were circling the body, buzzing indolently. You remembered that gassy smell, sickish but dry, like farts in a closed room. He was a boy our age, he was dead, and I rejected the idea that anything about it could be natural; I pushed it away with horror.

  "Okay," Chris said, and he meant to be brisk but his voice
came out of his throat like a handful of dry bristles from an old whiskbroom. "Double-time."

  We started to almost-trot back the way we had come. We didn't talk. I don't know about the others, but I was too busy thinking to talk. There were things that bothered me about the body of Ray Brower--they bothered me then and they bother me now.

  A bad bruise on the side of his face, a scalp laceration, a bloody nose. No more-at least, no more visible. People walk away from bar-fights in worse condition and go right on drinking. Yet the train must have hit him; why else would his sneakers be off his feet that way? And how come the engineer hadn't seen him? Could it be that the train had hit him hard enough to toss him but not to kill him? I thought that, under just the right combination of circumstances, that could have happened. Had the train hit him a hefty, teeth-rattling side-swipe as he tried to get out of the way? Hit him and knocked him in a flying, backwards somersault over that caved-in banking? Had he perhaps lain awake and trembling in the dark for hours, not just lost now but disoriented as well, cut off from the world? Maybe he had died of fear. A bird with crushed tailfeathers once died in my cupped hands in just that way. Its body trembled and vibrated lightly, its beak opened and closed, its dark, bright eyes stared up at me. Then the vibration quit, the beak froze half-open and the black eyes became lackluster and uncaring. It could have been that way with Ray Brower. He could have died because he was simply too frightened to go on living.

  But there was another thing, and that bothered me most of all, I think. He had started off to go berrying. I seemed to remember the news reports saying he'd been carrying a pot to put his berries in. When we got back I went to the library and looked it up in the newspapers just to be sure, and I was right. He'd been berrying, and he'd had a pail, or a pot--something like that. But we hadn't found it. We found him, and we found his sneakers. He must have thrown it away somewhere between Chamberlain and the boggy patch of ground in Harlow where he died. He perhaps clutched it even tighter at first, as though it linked him to home and safety. But as his fear grew, and with it that sense of being utterly alone, with no chance of rescue except for whatever he could do by himself, as the real cold terror set in, he maybe threw it away into the woods on one side of the tracks or the other, hardly even noticing it was gone.